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She turned to Connors. “Although I won’t go off making waves, if anything crops up that I think is related to the case, I’ll pursue it. I’ll also let you know first,” she said in a determined tone, “to be sure you aren’t blindsided.”
Tomasek turned red.
Connors sighed. “If you do find out more, then we can reconsider. But it had better be good and better be kept quiet. Remember what I said.”
“I’ll remember.”
Without a “goodbye” or “nice to have worked with you on this case,” Greta rose and huffed out.
She stewed all the way back to Pacific City. A heavy mist, a dark overcast sky, and the gathering darkness perfectly matched her mood. She opened both front windows. The damp air felt good on her hot face. By the time the chill made her shiver, her flush had faded, and she was calmer. She closed the windows and left the heat off. Connors was right—and wrong. But mainly right in the real world about all the reasons for moving on. The gall at not solving a brutal murder was real. The consequences of her damaging relations with other enforcement agencies was also real. However, closing the investigation, no matter how anyone framed it, was somehow wrong.
It was one of those moments when she questioned whether this was the career she wanted. She could dump this job and be a basketball coach. Her good feelings about the place she was making for herself seemed distant and unconnected.
I’m tired, she thought. Tired and frustrated. Time to try to relax and get my thoughts in order.
She was tired of the case, of the frustration, of the normal patrol routine, of being Deputy Havorsford, of being a big woman, of feeling alone, of doubting herself . . . and just plain tired. She drove into her garage. The mist had turned to steady rain, drenching small drops. No wind to speak of. She took a long hot shower—long enough that the hot water started to run out. She donned her brightest flannel jammies, opened a Columbia Valley riesling, and put on a DVD of the 2008 European Ballroom Dance finals. Halfway through, she cut up a plate of four cheeses, opened a sleeve of whole-grain crackers, and finished the DVD. By then, it was almost ten-thirty and larger raindrops beat against multiple skylights throughout the house. The DVD, the wine, the cheese, and most of the crackers gone, she opened the windows in her bedroom, crawled under the covers, and thought about life as a basketball coach.
On Monday morning, she started the week with the excitement of writing speeding tickets. Traffic enforcement ranked low on her list of duties. Nobody was in a good mood after being pulled over with sirens and flashing lights. The speeders’ moods varied. Most were embarrassed to some degree from speeding, from being caught, or from the public exposure. Others were angry at being caught, at thinking they weren’t going that fast, or generally miffed based on who they thought they were.
The unwritten rule she learned during her first month was to ignore anyone going five miles over the speed limit. Above that, the officer had discretion. Usually, an automatic ticket came for anything more than ten miles per hour above the speed limit. She sometimes ignored a few of the higher ones, though occasionally some drivers gave her no choice. Like the first one that morning. She was waiting to turn onto Cape Kiwanda Drive, heading out of town to catch the 101, when a blue pickup roared past, heading south. By now, she could pretty well judge speeds from a motionless position.
Je–e-sus! she muttered to herself. That idiot must be doing fifty in a thirty zone. And right in front of me! Why didn’t he just come by the house and ask me to write him up?
She pulled out, hit the gas, and kept the truck in sight. She matched his speed before Cape Kiwanda dead-ended on Pacific Avenue. Fifty-four mph. When he hit the intersection, he slowed only enough to take the turn without tipping over. Cape Kiwanda had the right of way, while Pacific Avenue had stop signs in both directions. One car slammed on the brakes when its driver mistakenly thought the pickup was far enough away that he could proceed from his rolling stop.
She caught up with the pickup driver about a mile later, and they pulled over at a parking area near the river. The driver rolled down his window—a man in his mid-twenties, neatly dressed, with a clean-cut look—and admitted being late to work in Tillamook City, at the cheese factory, no less. He was annoyed at being stopped and made the mistake of urging Greta to finish giving him the ticket so he could proceed.
If he had been late before, what was she supposed to think about his driving after this? And he’d be going right past four schools to get to the factory, not to mention through the middle of Tillamook City and all the other settlements and houses on the way.
The driver had picked the wrong day to interact with a frustrated Greta. She went from being annoyed at having to chase him down to being pissed at his attitude. She carefully examined his license, asked for and scrutinized his registration and proof of insurance, made sure that all his lights worked, called in the license plate and the driver’s name to check for outstanding warrants (there were none), then looked over his license, registration, and insurance again just to be thorough.
By this time, the driver had progressed from being annoyed to angry, to worried, to really worried, to really, really worried. It finally sank in that he had pissed off the one person who controlled his movement. When his level of meekness reached an acceptable level, she let him proceed, ticket in hand, with the warning that she would call ahead to the Tillamook City Police, who would look for him when he passed through. Given the distance and the speed limits along the way, she told him that if he hit Tillamook City in fewer than forty-five minutes, the police there would haul him in for reckless driving, and he could kiss goodbye to getting to work at all that day.
She sent him off with, “Have a good day.”
Watching him carefully drive off, she noticed that her mood had improved. She got back in her vehicle and pulled out a map of southern Tillamook County to plan her cruising patrol later that day. Her phone rang.
“Sheriff’s Deputy Havorsford.”
“Hi, there. This is Dave Sheffel, Fish and Game. Mitch Connors gave me a call a while back that you think there might be some larger-scale abalone poaching going on. I apologize for not calling earlier. I rang you once and got no answer. It frankly slipped my mind to follow up.”
“No problem,” she responded, though she was annoyed. “It’s just something that came up in an investigation.”
“The homicide Mitch mentioned? You think there may be a connection?”
“To be honest, who knows? All we know is that we found equipment and tools in the victim’s car that indicate he did abalone collecting
. Since he was always on the edge of the law and into drugs, it figures he might have been scraping up money any way he could. I was also advised of rumors about regular abalone collecting at some secret spots rich in abalone along the coast. These spots might have been staked out by individuals who would respond harshly to anyone else trying to dip into what they considered their own private bank account.”
“Who told you this?”
“One of the victim’s acquaintances. I don’t think he was involved in anything illegal himself, and he didn’t know any other details, only rumors he’d picked up.”
“Well,” Sheffel said dubiously, “can’t say as I’ve heard of this myself, but there’s nothing saying that such abalone hot spots might not exist. If they did, and the discoverer had an outlet to move them to, it could add up to a tidy sum. Abalone can run $200 a pound on the underground market.”
“Two hundred dollars a pound! Good grief. For a big snail?”
“Well . . . it’s considered a delicacy, plus there aren’t that many anymore, and collecting them is strictly regulated—in theory. None can be taken south of San Francisco in California, and farther north, the number you can take in a year is restricted, and then only at certain times of the year. Also, you can only have three in your possession at one time. They have to be at least seven inches in diameter, and you can’t use scuba gear. They’re found from low tide marks down to a hundred feet or more. You have to free-dive, so that limits how deep the collector can go.
