Desperate Measures Read online

  Desperate

  Measures

  Patricia H. Rushford

  Copyright © 1998 by Patricia H. Rushford

  First e-book copyright © 2015 by Blackstone Publishing

  All rights reserved

  Trade: 978-1-4829-9348-6

  Library: 978-1-4829-9349-3

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to the Fur Commission, fur farmers, and animal preservation groups for contributing to the authenticity of Desperate Measures—most specifically to Arnold Kroll, Judy Frandsen, Jan Bono, and the Clark County Medical Examiner’s office.

  Patricia Rushford is an award-winning writer, speaker, and teacher who has published numerous articles and over twenty-seven books, including What Kids Need Most in a Mom, The Jack and Jill Syndrome: Healing for Broken Children, and Have You Hugged Your Teenager Today? She is a registered nurse and has a master’s degree in counseling from Western Evangelical Seminary. She and her husband, Ron, live in Washington State and have two grown children, eight grandchildren, and lots of nephews and nieces.

  Pat has been reading mysteries for as long as she can remember and is delighted to be writing mysteries of her own. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and several other writing organizations. She is also the co-director of Writer’s Weekend at the Beach.

  1

  The gun barrel dug deep into Jennie McGrady’s ribs. She pushed it away and tried to concentrate on the paper she was writing on acid rain.

  “Bang! I got you.” Nick stepped back and fired again.

  “Ow!” She jumped when the cold water soaked through her t-shirt and ran down her side. “Mom!” Jennie yelled. “Tell Nick to leave me alone. He’s being a pest.”

  She’d tried everything she could think of to get her five-year­old brother out of her hair, but he kept coming back. Ordinarily she didn’t mind having him around, but today was not one of those days. This day, this no-good, horrible, not-worth-getting­up-for day, she wanted to be left alone.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jennie,” Susan McGrady countered, “if there’s a problem with Nick, take care of it yourself. I’m trying to rest.”

  Guilt crept in with all the other bad feelings rolling around inside. Mom, being newly pregnant, needed her rest. She’d been suffering off and on with serious bouts of morning sickness.

  “Why are you telling Mommy on me?” Nick wrapped his scrawny arms around her neck and climbed on her back, nearly choking her. “Don’t you love me no more?”

  “Nick, please.” Jennie could hear the whine in her voice and didn’t like it one bit. She was acting more like six than sixteen. Jennie pulled him around to her lap and gave him a hug. “I love you. It’s just that I’m in a rotten mood.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” she said simply, then listed the reasons in her mind. Because Ryan Johnson is a jerk. Because our school was burned to the ground in an arson fire and we have to go to school in an old warehouse in Oregon City. Because I have to do twice as much work around the house as usual. Summer’s nearly over and it’s raining.

  Jennie could have named half a dozen more becauses, but what good would it do? All the complaining in the world wouldn’t change the fact that Ryan was dating Camilla, and Jennie had slipped back into the role of being just a friend. She’d seen the beginnings of a romance between Ryan and Camilla during her last visit to her grandparents’ home in Bay Village at the coast where Ryan lived. Ryan had assured her then that there was nothing between them. Yeah, right. Jennie thought back to her conversation with Ryan the night before.

  “We’ll always be friends, Jennie,” Ryan assured her. “Right now I don’t even know how I feel about Camilla,” he said, “but we’ve been out a couple of times and—”

  “You don’t have to explain,” Jennie mumbled. “I understand. I feel the same way about … Scott.” Jennie wasn’t sure why Scott Chambers came to mind at that particular moment, but he had and with good results.

  “The guy you met in Florida?” Ryan sounded jealous.

  “Yeah.” Jennie picked up Scott’s picture from her dresser.

  “I guess that means he finally got a hold of you,” Ryan said.

  “What do you mean?” She set the picture back.

  “While your gram and J. B. have been gone, I’ve been picking up the mail and getting phone messages. He sent a letter to her address with your name on it and left about three messages on her answering machine.”

  “Scott did? Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I didn’t realize it was that important to you or I would have.”

  Jennie bristled. “It is. As important as Camilla is to you.”

  “I see. Then I guess we don’t have much more to say to each other.”

  “I guess not.” Jennie hung up. Too angry to cry, she tried to put the entire conversation out of her head.

  So far she hadn’t had much luck. She pushed thoughts of Ryan away again now as Nick looked at her with his pleading dark blue eyes. Those eyes and thick, dark hair, so like her own, were a genetic trait from the McGrady side of the family. Jennie, Nick, Jennie’s dad, Jason, his twin sister, Kate, and Gram all had similar features. Of course, Gram’s hair was now mostly gray.

  Setting Nick on the floor, she tried one more time. “Nick, I need to study. And I think I hear Bernie calling you.”

  Nick listened intently. “I don’t hear him.” Bernie was Nick’s St. Bernard puppy, though as big as the dog had gotten over the summer, the puppy part didn’t do him justice.

  “That’s because you’re not listening with your heart,” Jennie explained. “Trust me, Bernie wants you to play with him.”

  “He always knocks me down. You come play too.”

  “I can’t. I have homework, then I have to get ready to go with Lisa.” Jennie glanced at the clock. Lisa Calhoun, her cousin and best friend, would be .calling any minute and wanting to leave. Unfortunately, Jennie wasn’t anywhere near ready.

  “Where ya goin’?” Nick wriggled off her lap, looking as if he were about to cry.

  “Lisa and I are spending the weekend with Megan.”

  “At the mink farm?” He jumped up and down. “I want to go too. Can I go? I want to see the baby minks.”

  “Not this time.”

  “I’m going to ask Mommy. She’ll make you take me.”

  “Good idea.” Jennie grinned at his departing figure, got up, and closed her bedroom door. Mom would say no, of course. With any luck at all, she’d distract him with a story. The weekend away was Jennie’s reward for putting in all the extra hours working around the house the last few weeks.

  Back at her computer, she tried concentrating on her report, but part of her brain stayed focused on the weekend. Tom and Mary Bergstrom had been family friends for years, and their daughter, Megan, invited them out to the farm several weekends a year.

  Looking forward to the outing and wondering why Scott had called kept Jennie from feeling too depressed about Ryan. She sighed and forced herself to concentrate on her project—writing about the effects of pollution on rivers and streams and how fish and wildlife are affected by human carelessness. Deformed fish were showing up in some of the local rivers. Not a good sign.

  As Jennie worked, Scott Chambers slipped into her mind again. After managing to write two pages, she gave up and moved to her window seat. Images of Florida and Scott became too strong to ignore. Jennie remembered their first meeting and how she’d thought him arrogant and overly committed to his animal rights activist group, the Dolphin Protection Agency. He’d been on a save-the-dolphins kick and practically accused her of being
a dolphin killer because she and Gram were going to see the dolphins and sea lions perform at Dolphin Playland. Even in those first stormy moments, though, she’d felt a certain attraction to him. After he learned that Gram was researching and writing articles on the subject, he warmed considerably, and over the course of two weeks, Jennie and Scott had become good friends.

  Jennie’s heart still fluttered at the thought of his intense sea-green gaze boring into hers during their first meeting. He had a killer smile and loved to tease her. She admired his determination to save the dolphins but worried about his overzealous attitude. Jennie loved dolphins, too, and planned to do what she could. On the other hand, it was Scott who piqued her interest in environmental issues, which had led her to concentrate on term papers like “Dolphins in Our Midst,” “Cigarette Butts and Their Impact on Marine Life,” and “Acid Rain.”

  Why had Scott been trying to call her? Had he come out west to go to school? He’d mentioned coming to the area to study marine biology, She mentally kicked herself for not getting Scott’s number from Ryan. “No way am I going to call him back now.”

  Jennie sighed. Gram was due home in another week. “You’ll find out soon enough,” she told herself. For now, however, she needed to concentrate on her homework.

  An hour later, Jennie saved her file, backed out of her word processing program, and turned off her computer. She’d just placed her duffel bag on the bed when the phone rang. Thinking it was Lisa, she answered, “I’m almost ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “Oops. Sorry, I thought you were … Scott?” Jennie tipped her head back, glad he couldn’t see the silly grin on her face.

  “Hey, you recognized my voice. That’s a good sign.”

  “I heard you were trying to get ahold of me.”

  “Yeah, I lost your number, and all I could find was your grandmother’s business card. Ryan called a few minutes ago to let me know she was out of town and gave me your number.”

  “How nice of him.”

  “Yeah, it saved me from having to call all the McGrady’s in the Portland phone book. As I recall, Ryan is your boyfriend.”

  “Was.”

  “Hmm. I wondered. He didn’t seem too happy about sharing your number. Asked me a bunch of questions first.”

  “Like what?”“

  Scott laughed. “If you can believe it, I think he wanted to make sure my intentions were honorable. He must still like you.”

  Jennie shrugged off the hurt she felt over Ryan’s dating Camilla. “Probably habit. We’ve been friends a long time.” Wanting to change the subject, she asked, “So why have you been trying to get ahold of me?”

  “I moved out here a couple weeks ago. Too late for first semester, so until I can get into Oregon State, I signed on to do a research project for an animal ethics group. People for the Protection of Animals—ever heard of them?”

  “No.” Jennie bit her lip, not sure she really wanted to know but knowing she should ask anyway. “What are you researching?”

  “The treatment of minks among fur ranchers in Oregon.”

  Jennie groaned. “You’re kidding. I can’t believe this. Some friends of ours own a mink farm near Lebanon. Lisa and I are visiting there this weekend.”

  “Yeah? Who?”

  “Tom and Mary Bergstrom.”

  “Really? Wow. Must be fate, Jennie. I just got job with the Bergstroms’. Figured the best way to do research was some hands­ on experience.”

  Jennie should have been delighted. She would get to be with Scott again for an entire weekend, but the thrill of seeing him drowned in the trepidation she felt. Scott Chambers working on a mink farm, where over ten thousand mink were caged and bred for their coats, oil, and body parts, could only lead to one thing. Trouble.

  2

  “Do you really think Scott will do something bad?” Lisa asked after Jennie confided her concerns about Scott’s working on the mink farm.

  “Not bad.” The rain had given way to partial sunshine on their drive south on I-5. They’d drive through Lebanon, then turn toward Thompson, which was located just east of the Bergstrom farm. Jennie flipped on the air conditioning in her red Mustang. “He’s not malicious, just misguided, I think. When I first met Scott he’d been arrested four times for going too far in protecting dolphins and other marine life. I know how much he hates people using dolphins like circus animals, so think how he must feel about killing fur-bearing animals like mink and fox so people can have fur coats and oil to protect their shoes.”

  “Probably not real crazy about the idea, huh?”

  “How do you feel about breeding animals for their fur?” Jennie asked.

  Lisa turned in her seat and tucked her leg up under her. “Megan’s parents have had the mink farm since I can remember. I love the feel of real fur. Still, it’s always bothered me that those poor animals have to die.”

  “Me too. But like Mom says, how much different is it from raising animals like ostrich, bunnies, lambs, and cows to slaughter for food and hides?”

  “Not to mention the hunters who go after deer and elk just for fun.”

  “And seals.” Jennie added.

  “At least the Bergstroms’ take good care of their animals.” Lisa sighed. “Didn’t you say Scott was just researching?”

  “That’s what he told me.” Jennie moved into the right lane and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “I hope that’s all he’s doing.”

  “I saw in the paper where one of those animal-rights groups picketed a store back east. They put on full-length mink coats all splattered with blood and locked themselves in cages right in front of the store.” Lisa wrinkled her nose.

  “That’s disgusting,” Jennie said. “Wonder where they got the blood?”

  “Good question. Do you suppose they killed an animal to get it?”

  “Hmm. I doubt it. That would go against their principles.”

  “Maybe they take it from each other.”

  Jennie grimaced. “I think I read someplace where a group of them broke into a blood bank and stole human blood.”

  Lisa gasped. “That’s awful. Seems like they care more about animals than about people.”

  “I’m not so sure they care that much about the animals either. Some of the things they do hurt humans and animals. lf I were a mink farmer I’d be worried—especially after an activist group released all those mink this summer. That farm wasn’t too far from Tom and Mary’s.”

  “You mean the one where all those mink died?” Lisa asked. “The paper said the death rate was in the thousands.”

  “Yeah, and most of them were babies that hadn’t been weaned yet.”

  “Makes me furious. How could they say they want to help the animals and then do something that ends up killing them? It just doesn’t seem right.”

  “It’s senseless and stupid.” Jennie left the interstate, taking the highway east to Lebanon. “I feel bad for the animals that are killed, but like Gram always says, ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right.’ Besides, I’m not convinced using animals for food and clothing is wrong. People have been wearing animal skins since God first created humans. In Genesis it says God gave the man and woman clothes made from the skins of animals. He meant for us to use animals for food, but I’m sure He wouldn’t sanction abuse.”

  “I guess it’s one of those issues that doesn’t have any easy answers.”

  “Well, I refuse to worry about it,” Jennie decided. “All I want to do this weekend is relax and have a good time. This is our last long weekend before fall.”

  “Ditto. Did you bring your swimsuit?”

  Jennie laughed. “That’s like asking if I brought my skin.” Jennie loved swimming and had joined the swim team at Trinity High. Their coach, DeeDee Dayton, made them practice at least once a day, but this weekend DeeDee was going sailing in the San Juan Isla
nds.

  “You kids have a free weekend,” the coach had told them at practice the day before.

  Friday was a state-wide teachers’ conference, and with Monday being Labor Day, they had a four-day weekend. Jennie planned to enjoy every minute of it. She tried to think of her reunion with Scott as part of the fun, but her intuition kicked in again, giving her the uneasy feeling she always had just before something disastrous was about to happen.

  Ten minutes later, they turned onto a long, tree-lined driveway that wound to the top of a hill. The farm was only about twenty acres—it didn’t take a lot of land to raise fur-bearing animals. But because mink had a faint odor reminiscent of skunk, Tom and Mary had built their new home on the hill, about a football field’s length away from the barns. Jennie’s gaze settled on the fenced-in area where the mink were raised. She’d been inside with Megan and Mr. Bergstrom several times.

  The mink were housed in ten long, metal barns about 430 feet long, each containing fourteen hundred wire mesh cages. In front of the barns was a large, rectangular two-story metal shop where the Bergstroms kept their farm machinery and mixed the mink’s feed—a high-protein concoction of chicken, beef livers, and grain. It looked like canned cat food.

  Halfway between the mink and the new house was an older two-story farmhouse—where the Bergstroms used to live. They now used it to house the hired hands who worked for them. Scott would probably be staying there.

  Jennie stopped the car, got out, and looked around. Her gaze panned the outbuildings, but she saw no sign of Scott.

  “Jennie! Lisa!” Megan threw open the front door and rushed toward them, arms open wide, her blond curls bouncing up and down. “I can’t believe you’re finally here.”

  Drooley, their dog, lumbered down the steps, woofing in that deep, casual way basset hounds did. They’d named him Drooley because that’s exactly what he did—drooled and slobbered all over. Megan called it wet kisses. Though she wasn’t crazy about all the slobber, Jennie liked Drooley and gave him a warm greeting. She rubbed his ears and looked into his huge, sad eyes. “Hi, boy. Did you miss us?”