The Pine Barrens Stratagem, a new thriller by Ken Harris Spotlight + Excerpt + Book & Author Info The Pine Barrens Stratagem Private Investigator Steve Rockfish needs cash, like yesterday. The bad news is that yesterday, a global pandemic raged, and Maryland was headed toward a lockdown that would ultimately lead to cheating spouses no […]
As a private investigator, I often deal with the misery of others. And while that’s way better than dealing with my own misery, I was still looking forward to a few relaxing days surrounded by the beauty of the Cascade Mountains. My plan was to worry about nothing more serious than whether to have a latte or a cocktail in the late afternoon.
Besides my clients and the attention they required, the circle of people in my life were demanding more and more of my time. I wasn’t sure how I felt about not being as footloose and fancy-free as I had been for so many years. Relationships require attention, and I wasn’t totally convinced I was up to the challenge.
Being a grownup wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Back in March, my mother Chava had started working security for a casino not far from my Bellingham home. She excelled in her new job, able as she was to sniff out shuffle trackers and con men with the instincts of a bloodhound. Recently rewarded for her vigilance with a hike in pay— after her three-month probationary period ended at the beginning of June—she had generously offered up a mother-daughter getaway weekend to celebrate at the newly renovated Wenatchee Valley Hot Springs Resort and Spa.
Her success was further proof that she had no intention of returning to her beloved Las Vegas anytime soon or that my guest room would return to being my home office in the near future. Apparently I now had a full-time roommate.
Currently that roommate was crouched over the wheel of her bright red Mazda 6, zooming up the road toward our destination.
“You’ve been down in the mouth ever since that thing with Dakota Fontaine,” she’d said last week when she brought up the idea. “I thought you could use a long weekend away.”
Just before Chava started her new job, an old friend from my Spokane childhood had shown up in Bellingham, bringing Sturm und Drang with her. The whole adventure had made me a little cranky.
Besides, I’d thought at the time, why turn down a mini-vacation with the added bonus I could make my mother happy? And, as the resort was dog friendly, we got to take Franklin, my one-hundred-seventy-five pound, Tibetan mastiff-Irish wolfhound cross. So I said yes.
An hour into our drive, we passed through Monroe, a town of slightly under twenty thousand souls. It had sprung up around the railroad a hundred years ago. Once we got through town, we stopped for lattes at the Coffee Corral, a small, roadside stand in the parking lot of the Reptile Zoo. One of these days I’d stop and visit Reptile Man and his animals, but today we were winging our way up Highway 2, heading into the mountains.
Road trips always felt like an opportunity for a do-over. A “restart button” to erase life’s inevitable, messy complications. Especially if my destination was a place I’d never been, a place where no one knew me. I could begin afresh. A new romance, a new job, I could be an orphan—
Chava began singing loudly to the radio and I slammed back into the here and now, her presence tethering me to my current existence, regardless of our distance from home.
Life could be worse though. I could be paying for this little getaway.
I was more excited than I wanted to admit. Chava and I had rarely been on destination vacations together. We’d visited each other in our respective cities over the years, but seldom gone to another location entirely. I’d found excuses to tell everyone I knew that we were going: my best friend Iz, because I had to cancel our Saturday morning workout session at the dojo; Debbie Buse, in case she’d been thinking about meeting at the dog park on Sunday; and Chance Parker, my ex-boyfriend from Seattle who’d taken a job as a police detective in Bellingham last December.
After several tries over the course of the week, I’d “run” into him at Rustic Coffee in Fairhaven and asked him what his weekend plans were. I figured social etiquette would make him ask me about mine.
“I’m taking a few days off and going up to Orcas Island,” he said. “Do a little carpentry. A friend’s cabin needs a new roof.” Chance was pretty good with home repair projects, so I wasn’t surprised, though I wondered about the friend.
“Should be lovely up there,” I said. “What’s the cabin like?” And more importantly, who’s the owner?
“Primitive,” Chance said, with a laugh. “We won’t have electricity or cell service. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but James is used to surviving in the wilderness, and a few days of roughing it won’t hurt me.”
I remembered James. He lived in Alaska and took people out to look at bears and walruses and live on sticks and berries.
“Very manly,” I said.
“What about you?” Chance asked, proving my expectation about social niceties. I explained about the trip Chava had planned for us.
“Sounds like fun,” he said. “You’ll have to tell me all about it when you get back.”
That was a good sign, right? Almost like asking me out on a date.
“Why don’t we get together?” I said, emboldened by his easy manner. “When we’re both back. Compare notes on our respective long weekends.”
“Sure,” he said. “We’ll figure something out.”
That was a yes, right?
“You’re smiling,” Chava said as we reached the outskirts of Sultan, the first small town after Monroe, and had to slow down.
“I’m content,” I said, a little surprised to discover it was true.
The distinctly Western Washington small towns whizzed by outside the windows. Startup, Gold Bar, Baring—places with grocery stores and ski rentals mixed in with taverns and restaurants, all of which had seen better days. Not to mention the string of funky espresso drive-thrus, including: a windmill, a barn, and a tiny brick building, all with clever names. After Google and Amazon, coffee was the most popular business in our area.
Or maybe all that coffee was why we had the tech business to begin with.
Stands of evergreens mixed with deciduous trees covered in moss stretched out along the banks of the Skykomish. The rushing, westbound river competed for space with a railroad track and the road we were on in the corridor up to Stevens Pass. We crossed bridges with the river underneath us and sped under bridges with the railroad overhead, sometimes occupied by a moving train.
I could feel my tension ease as we left civilization behind. Tee trees were green. The river was clear as glass, first reflecting the sky, then turning into rapids, then forming deep quiet pools in the eddies of a bank. Franklin snoozed contentedly in the backseat, chin tucked against one armrest, feet pressed against the door on the other side.
A green sign flashed by—STEVENS PASS, ELEVATION 4061—as we raced alongside the ski resort. Summer had turned the snow-covered paths into bare wounds with the zigzag of ski li s stitching them together. Chava hurtled over the crest and swooped down the other side, like a downhill skier setting a record. Though I’d never admit it, it was always fun being her passenger.
Off in the distance, a thin column of smoke appeared. e plume rose straight up from the dense forest before fading into a gauzy haze and disappearing altogether. A resident probably had a burn pile going—that was how many of the locals disposed of trash or yard waste. It could also be part of a planned burn, designed to clear dangerous underbrush before a spark from a careless camper or a zap of summer lightning lit the mass of tinder. The rest of the sky was clear as far as I could see.
I began to hum along with the melody of an old Eagles tune. It was going to be a perfect getaway. What could possibly go wrong?
They say the past catches up with you. And maybe that’s true. But I believe in free will, so maybe, sometimes, it’s less about the past catching up and more about you choosing to stop, turn around, and finally face it.
If not, you might spend your whole life running.
As a private investigator, I’d had a busy couple of days. A teenage boy had run away from home in Olympia, Washington, one hundred fifty miles to the south of my home in Bellingham. His frantic parents did not want to bring in the police. They’d heard a rumor he’d traveled up here, so they hired me to track him down. I’d located him in a flophouse along with several other miscreants, guilty of nothing more obnoxious than panhandling and smoking a little pot.
Relieved by my phone call assuring them their little hooligan was safe and sound, the parents planned to drive up tonight and get a hotel. In the morning, the three of us would arrive at his new abode together, long before he hit the streets.
My work was tidied up for the day, so I was thinking about heading home. Since it was still winter, the sun set before six o’clock and there was nothing like a rainy Friday night to get me feeling melancholy. The empty hours stretching in front of me weren’t helping. I had nothing planned for the evening and it was unlikely that was going to change. My love life was a mess and I couldn’t even indulge in a high-calorie bitchfest with my best friend, because Izabelle was out on a date.
The mess had to do with my ex-boyfriend, homicide detective Chance Parker. He’d recently moved to Bellingham and I couldn’t figure out how he felt about me. I’d had dinner with him a few days ago, which had been nice, but confusing. Nice, because it felt as if we could be friends again. Confusing, because I wasn’t sure friendship was all I wanted from the man. We hadn’t seen each other since I slipped out of Seattle two years ago.
My mentor, Benjamin Cooper, had just committed suicide. At the time, I hadn’t given Chance a very satisfactory explanation for leaving. The night Coop died I had canceled our plans to spend time with Chance instead. I knew that wasn’t why Coop shot himself, but somehow grief and guilt combined in my head and I’d done the only thing I could think of to banish it: run.
As for the immediate future, it was either sit here at my desk and pretend I had something important to do or admit defeat and head home to Chava asking me what I wanted to watch on TV.
Living with my mother was both comforting and terrifying. Comforting, in that watching Longmire with her beat watching Longmire alone. Terrifying, in that I wondered if this was what life had in store for the foreseeable future. Chava and I would get older and crankier, but settle into a routine neither of us had the strength to break.
Chava wasn’t any better at long-term romantic relationships than I was. Granted, she’d actually made it to the altar a few times, but I didn’t think a couple of divorces made her a more likely candidate for lifelong lovey-dovey bliss.
As I packed up my laptop, I contemplated whether we had enough wine at home or if I should stop and pick up a bottle along the way. Maybe one red and one white. Mix them together and we’d get pink. That made rosé, right?
Before I got out the door, my office phone rang. I let my answering machine pick up. Only people calling in for the first time or trying to sell me something used my landline; existing clients used my cell. I didn’t really need the old Bakelite rotary phone sitting on the corner of my desk, but no way was I getting rid of it. That phone had belonged to Coop and reminded me of happy times. It also provided a great connection and sometimes I just didn’t want to talk on a cellphone. Maybe those things really do cause brain cancer—how would I know? I was going to hang on to that baby until you couldn’t plug it into the wall anymore. Maybe even after that. It made a great paperweight, after all.
My answering machine was newer than the telephone, though not by much. It came on after the fourth ring and soon the sound of my voice was telling the caller to leave a message. The ability to sit at my desk and screen calls pleased me immensely. The whole “going straight to voicemail” thing kind of spoiled the pleasure I received from being a voyeur. As far as I was concerned, technological advancements sometimes weren’t.
The beep sounded. I held my breath. Was it Ed McMahon? Had I won a million dollars? Was my life about to change?
“Eddie? It’s me, Dakota. Dakota Fontaine.”
It had been over a decade since I’d last heard her voice, but I would have recognized it anywhere. She had been my best friend for more than half my lifetime—all my formative years. From Taylor Elementary until I dropped out of Valley High. The last time I’d seen her, I was eighteen and leaving our hometown of Spokane, Washington, for good. I hadn’t planned on losing touch, but life had gotten busy and to be honest, it wasn’t always easy being her friend.
Not that I never missed her. She was funny, charming, and could be generous and thoughtful, but she was a drama queen, and it wore me out.
Her voice shook and I wondered what emotion fueled it.
“I’m here,” she said, “in Bellingham. And I need your help.” She paused. “I don’t know who else to turn to.”
I still didn’t answer.
“I’m in jail.”
I picked up.
Call me Eddie Shoes. Not a very feminine moniker, but it suits me. My father’s name was Eduardo Zapata. My mother, Chava, in a fit of nostalgia, named me Edwina Zapata Schultz, even though by the time I was born she hadn’t seen my father in seven months. Edwina was a mouthful to saddle any child with, and at the ripe old age of six, I announced to Chava I would only answer to Eddie. I didn’t have any nostalgia for a guy I’d never met, so Zapata just seemed like a name no one ever spelled right the first time. I also didn’t care much for Schultz, and Chava wasn’t particularly maternal in any conventional sense, so not a lot of nostalgia there either. At eighteen I legally changed my name to Eddie Shoes.
That said a lot about my sense of humor.
Chava and I had come to an understanding. I kept her in my life as long as our contact was minimal and primarily over email. It was just enough to allay her guilt and not enough to make me crazy, so it worked out for both of us. She’d always been down on my choice of career, but what did she expect from a girl who called herself Eddie Shoes? If I hadn’t become a private investigator, I probably would have been a bookie, so I figured she should have been a little more positive about the whole thing.
My career was the reason I sat hunkered in the car, in the dark, halfway down the block from a tacky hotel, clutching a digital camera and zoom lens, waiting to catch my latest client’s husband with a woman not his wife. I’d already gotten a few choice shots of the guy entering the room, but he’d gone in alone and no one else had arrived, so I assumed the other woman was already waiting for him. I’d been tailing the guy for a few days, so I had a pretty good guess who the chippie would turn out to be. I didn’t think he’d hired his “office manager” for her filing skills, and sleeping with the married boss was a cliché because it happened all the time.
I could already prove the man a liar. He told his wife he played poker with the boys on Wednesday nights, and I didn’t think he was shacked up in this dive with three of his closest buddies, unless he was kinkier than I imagined.
But then, people never ceased to amaze me.
December in Bellingham, Washington, often brought cold, clear weather and that night was no exception. Starting the engine to warm up sounded tempting, but I didn’t want anyone to notice me sitting there. Nice it wasn’t raining, but if the thermometer crept much over twenty, I hadn’t noticed. To make matters worse, my almost six-foot frame had been scrunched down in the driver’s seat for more than two hours. Even with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders, I was half frozen, and I desperately hoped my mark didn’t have more stamina than I’d pegged him for.
All I wanted was to go home and go to bed.
And at some point I would need to pee.
Finally, up on the second floor, the door of the hotel room I had my eye on opened. I brought my camera up, ready for the money shots. I knew from my earlier pics that the dirty white stucco on the side of the building bounced the pale glow from the minimal exterior lights enough for my pictures to be clear without a flash.
Even from a distance, I had a nice, unobstructed view of the location. The only barrier between someone standing on the narrow walk and my camera lens was a flimsy, rusty-looking, wrought-iron railing. The balusters looked too thin to stop anyone from falling the height of the first floor to the asphalt parking lot below, and I wondered if anything at the tawdry place passed code.
I wasn’t going to stay there, so what did I care?
The “liar”—I have always been creative with nicknames—stepped out, straightening his tie. I snapped a few pictures and held my breath, hoping the other woman would come out behind him. Even if I took pictures of her exiting a few minutes later, I needed the husband in the picture with her. Otherwise, a surprising number of wives would argue with me about what actually took place in these various, if interchangeable, hotel rooms. For some reason they would rather believe I faked the info about their husband cheating than admit he strayed, which confused me because I got paid either way. It seemed especially crazy when you considered that they must already know the truth, given they hired me in the first place. But I knew better than to look for logic in the ways of the human heart. I got the best evidence possible.
The man turned, his face silhouetted by the light coming from the room behind him. He had an exceptionally generous head of hair, which made him quite recognizable, even in bad light. Mid-forties, and mostly in good shape, he appeared athletic as long as he didn’t unbutton his sports coat. I could see why women were attracted to him, though he didn’t do a thing for me. I liked my men a little more honest.
But then, I’d never been married, so what did I know?
A figure moved from behind him into the shadow of the doorway.
“Come on, honey, step out into the light,” I said, holding the camera up to my eye. “One more step, so I can see your face.”
The woman obliged by leaning into the cold blue glow thrown by the old style, energy inefficient streetlights, her cheeks stained red in the ash of the vacancy sign. I happily clicked away as the “office manager” wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered sweet nothings in his ear. She clearly wore nothing but lingerie.
I guess she assumed no one else would be out this late on such a cold weeknight. Or maybe she enjoyed having people see her, a bit of an exhibitionist of the happy home-wrecker variety. Whatever the cause, she had him in the perfect spot for the best pictures.
I loved it when guilty people made my job easy.