When Shadows Fall: A Helen Bradley Mystery (Helen Bradley Mysteries Book 5) Read online

  ‘Be not anxious’. The familiar Bible verse drifted into her mind. ‘The day has enough troubles of its own.’

  'You're right about that, Lord. This one is turning out to be a doozy."

  Noticing the sun breaks in heavy cloud cover, Helen drove on to the house. What she needed was a good long walk on the beach to clear her head. As the Bible verse said, her worrying over things wouldn't help in the least. By this afternoon, she told herself, everything would be ironed out and they’d wonder what all the fuss was about.

  In the meantime she decided to take advantage of what appeared to be a brief but welcome window of opportunity to walk on her favorite stretch of beach near Siletz Bay. After her walk she'd check back in with Eleanor and Lynn.

  Chapter Three

  Helen stopped at the house, checked her answering machine, and changed into a pair of warm sweats. Alex Jordan was still working on the roof. She went out to see how he was progressing. He had stripped off several square feet of roofing and was laying down new tarpaper. A bundle of shingles sat nearby.

  "Looks like you're making progress."

  "Hope so." White teeth glistened from his tanned face. "That's what I'm here for. Should have this done in twenty minutes. Then I'll repair the damaged ceiling."

  "I just stopped by for a few minutes. I'll be leaving again unless you need something."

  "Not a problem, Mrs. Bradley." He took a drink from the canteen that hung on a belt around his waist. "I should be through in an hour or so."

  "Great." Helen went back inside. J.B. would be happy, since the leak had been in his office.

  J.B. Helen swallowed back the lump in her throat. Concern for him started anew. Her concern quickly turned to annoyance and determination not to let his mysterious departure ruin her day. She had to keep her mind on other things. Like going to the beach.

  Digging through her closet, she found her beach bag and tossed in the essentials: binoculars, a towel, paper and pen, and change of clothes in case she got wet. She then dumped a bowlful of agates she'd collected over the past year into a canvas bag and escaped into the sunshine.

  She'd been meaning to return the agates for several weeks, and now was as good a time as any. Not that they needed returning. It was just something she did on occasion. One could only collect and enjoy so many agates. After a while the collection overran the house, and it was time to clean them out, toss them back, and start over again.

  She threw her beach bag into the trunk and drove north of town on Highway 101, going past Salishan and the Siletz River. At the light she made a left onto the beach-access road and drove by the new condominiums and hotel. Seeing the new buildings still rankled her. Helen hated watching the area develop so rapidly. Condos, hotels, and shopping centers seemed to pop up every day like unwanted weeds in a flower garden. The coast was becoming far too crowded, especially during the summer and on weekends.

  Helen thought about stopping at the Clam Digger Restaurant for a latte and lunch but opted instead to wait until after her walk. The Clam Digger was a popular eatery known for its view, as well as for the fish chowder and seafood fare.

  Helen parked in the public lot at the end of the road. Before leaving her car, she grabbed her cell phone. She stuffed the phone in her beach bag and cut through the driftwood-studded sand to the water's edge.

  This scene where the bay and river mingled with the ocean had captured her heart. She'd often sit on a piece of driftwood and watch the seals sunning themselves on the sand spit across the narrow inlet or bobbing in the restless waters, playing and fishing in the strong currents.

  Helen tossed a handful of agates into the surf, then another. She chuckled to herself, thinking anyone who saw her would wonder about her sanity. Glancing around, she noted only one other person on the beach. An obviously pregnant woman, legs outstretched, was leaning back on her arms, with eyes closed and face to the sun.

  Helen looked up at the sky and grimaced. The wind was picking up again, bringing in another bank of clouds from the northwest and probably more rain. Not unusual, just disappointing. Summer had come and gone much too quickly this year. She'd often thought of joining the throngs of snowbirds who headed south for the winter, maybe to Laguna Beach or the Florida Keys. Maybe she'd talk to J.B. about the possibility. She stopped her thoughts before they could drift into annoyance again and tossed out another handful of agates. A large wave pressed in, forcing her up the bank. It was then she spotted a little boy.

  Helen felt a moment's irritation at the woman, who was still basking in the sun, oblivious to the danger her child might be in. At least she assumed the child was hers, as there were no other adults nearby. The boy, perhaps three or four, sat at the water's edge, filling the back of a red dump truck with wet sand. Neither mother nor child appeared to have any concern for the incoming tide.

  A wave knocked the child to his knees and swept over him. He came up gasping for air, with another bigger wave bearing down on him. Helen tossed her beach bag aside and raced into the water in an attempt to pull him to safety.

  She grabbed him around the middle and held him tight against her as she struggled against the receding water. The second wave crashed against her thighs, dragging her back. For several long and frightening moments she feared the severe undertow would drag them both out to sea.

  In a temporary reprieve between swells, she staggered forward out of the ocean's reach. "It's all right," she gasped. "You're safe now."

  Her words were lost in his frantic attempts to escape. "No, no, no." He flailed against her, pummeling her with his fists and shoes. Once they reached dry sand, Helen set him down.

  "Mommy," he sobbed, stretching up his arms to the young woman lumbering toward them.

  "Joshua! I told you not to go in the water."

  "I didn't," he wailed. "The water came and got me and pushed me down."

  "It wouldn't have if. . .." His mother sighed. "Never mind. You're safe, that's all that matters." She scooped up her son and straightened, a look of relief on her face. "Thank you so much." The woman, who seemed not much more than a child herself, stroked Joshua's sopping hair and wrapped her arms around him. "I . . . he got away from me. Josh was playing. ... I saw him fall. I was afraid we'd lost him."

  "Glad I could help." Helen couldn't resist a brief lecture. "The surf is dangerous here. We have a lot of sneaker waves coming in that toss logs around as if they were toothpicks. And the current is treacherous in places."

  "I've read about that. You're right. I should have been paying more attention."

  "Yes, you should have. If I hadn't. . . well, never mind. I just hope you'll watch him more closely in the future."

  "I will."

  Joshua struggled to be put down, but his mother kept a tight hold. "Be still. You're hurting Mommy's tummy."

  "But my truck. That mean lady made me lose my truck."

  "Joshua! That's no way to talk. You tell the nice lady you're sorry. If she hadn't pulled you out, you could have drowned."

  He pouted in response, his blue lips quivering.

  "I don't think he has a clue as to what drowning is," Helen said. "You'd better get him out of those wet clothes."

  "No," he whined. "I want my truck."

  "We'll get you a new one." His mother thanked Helen again and headed toward the rumpled blanket lying in the sand.

  Helen glanced at the surging sea that had almost claimed the child's life. Seeing the red toy tumbling in on a wave, she hurried back and scooped it up. As she did she spotted something trapped beneath a grotesque and misshapen tree stump. Her insides twisted in revulsion. She stifled a scream.

  Thinking she'd imagined it, Helen closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she fully expected to see a snarled root extending into the sand like human fingers. Unfortunately, she'd been right the first time. They were fingers, all right, on a very human hand.

  Chapter Four

  Helen wasn't normally given to hysterics, but then she'd never discovered a body on the bea
ch before. She felt as though she'd been rammed in the stomach with a two-by-four. Helen turned away and, with her left hand, gripped one of the roots above her head to keep her balance. She straightened and at the same time tried to pull her scattered senses together.

  Closing her eyes again, she hauled in a deep breath of salt air. Helen wasn't a stranger to death and as an ex-homicide detective had seen more than her share of bodies. But here, on the beach. . .. This was her sanctuary, her peace. She swallowed back the bile rising in her throat and tried to concentrate. She had to call the sheriff.

  Helen twisted around and looked at the hand again. Left hand. Palm down. Fingers curled. No rings or watch or identifying marks. The waves continued to dig into the sand beneath a large tree trunk of driftwood, revealing more of the victim's arm and a sneaker-clad foot. The arm had wet strands of dark hair. Ethan had dark hair. As did Chuck Daniels. And neither man had come home the night before. There was no reason to think the hand belongs to either of them, Helen reminded herself.

  Most of the victim's body had been buried beneath the wood, but she could see the remnant of a saturated gray wool sweater. She suspected the man had been walking or jogging. A sneaker wave must have heaved the enormous tree stump onto the beach, catching him unawares. As she'd told the young woman only a few minutes before, accidents like this happened far more often than they should.

  The fingers were long and tapered. Not like Chuck's, she decided. He was stockier, wasn't he?

  Helen closed her mind to the possibilities and refused to speculate on who the victim might be. Probably a tourist. Not someone she knew. She'd know for sure as soon as the authorities uncovered the body. Helen reached up to run a hand through her already disheveled hair and clunked her forehead with something hard. Staring at the toy truck in her hand, she frowned, momentarily blank as to what it was doing there.

  "Oh good. You found it." The pregnant woman came toward her with her little boy in tow.

  "Yes." Helen looked at the truck again, then at the victim, and hurried around the driftwood. "Stay there. I'll be right up."

  She scrambled over the sand dune and handed the truck over to its owner. The boy reached out from the beach towel his mother had wrapped around him and grabbed it. A smile curled his trembling blue lips.

  "Tell her thank you, Joshua," his mother coaxed.

  In response, he clutched the truck tighter and ducked his head against his mom's shoulder.

  "It's all right," Helen said. "Urn . . . something has come up. I have to make a phone call." Helen didn't mention the body. The woman had more than enough to deal with already.

  "Oh, sure. Guess I'd better get him to the car. I can't believe how quickly the weather changes here. One minute it's sunny and the next it's pouring. We just moved up from California and I'm not used to all this rain, or the cold."

  "Welcome to Oregon."

  "Thanks again. I owe you big time."

  "Don't mention it." The young woman looked overburdened, and Helen felt a twinge of guilt for not offering to help her. Unfortunately, she had a burden of her own.

  She wished the woman well and jogged back to where she'd dropped her beach bag. Pulling out her cell phone, Helen dialed 9-1-1 and reported her discovery.

  Once she'd given directions and advised the operator to send the appropriate equipment and manpower to pull the tree stump off the body, Helen went back to the scene to wait.

  Her lovely patch of blue sky had been overtaken by clouds. Her heart settled into a normal rhythm as she paced back and forth on the sand dune above the body and the tree stump that held it prisoner. She felt helpless and at odds. The sheriff and his crew would be there soon. Ten minutes max. Not soon enough. There was no urgency, though, except within her own restless spirit. The man was dead. Yet even in his death he seemed to cry out for attention.

  She didn't want to look at the body again. Didn't want to think about it. But her gaze kept drifting back. Was it Ethan? Or Chuck? Why did she keep thinking that? Other than the fact neither had come home the night before, she had no reason to believe either of them might be the victim. Refusing to think about either man's possible demise, she switched her thoughts to J.B., which didn't make her feel much better.

  Helen closed her eyes, wishing her handsome Irish husband were there beside her, warming her inside and out with his smile and his arms. Only that wasn't to be. At least not today. After the argument they'd had this morning, she wondered if he'd ever come back. Ian hadn't.

  This was different. Helen tried to reassure herself. J.B. wasn't an agent anymore.

  Anger flared again at the way J.B. had dismissed her questions. "What's the matter with you?" she muttered. It wasn't like her to be so negative.

  Two sheriff’s cars pulled into the public parking area, drawing Helen away from her morbid regressions. She watched the two officers emerge and jog around an obstacle course of drift­wood and through the quarter of a mile of soft sand that lay between the patrol cars and where she waited.

  "Hey, Mrs. Bradley. What's going on?" Joe paused to catch his breath. His dark hair was already damp and curling from the thick, steady mist. He brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen onto his forehead, and the moisture dripped onto his olive green rain slicker.

  Helen told him what she'd found. "You're going to need a four-by-four with a winch to get that tree stump off him."

  "Right. We've got one on the way." Joe introduced the officer who'd accompanied him as Tom Blackwell. Helen knew some of the officers in the area, but Tom was new to her.

  "I transferred in from Seattle." Tom Blackwell grinned and shook her hand. He was a beefy-looking fellow in his mid-forties with thinning sandy brown hair and hazel eyes. "Pleasure to meet you. Joe was just telling me about you."

  Seeming anxious now to get down to business, Joe asked, "Where is the body?"

  "Over here." Helen led the officers to the massive chunk of driftwood. "I was fishing a kid's toy out of the water when I found it."

  Tom looked away and shook his head. "Poor guy."

  Joe grimaced. "Must have been caught by a sneaker wave."

  "I was thinking the same thing." She kept her thoughts of Chuck and Ethan to herself.

  "We'll need to tape off the area."

  Tom agreed. "I'll bring the camera down. Better get some photos before the water gets too deep."

  Joe's dark gaze drifted back to Helen. "Thanks for the call. Sorry you had to be the one to find him."

  Helen shrugged. "Better me than some tourist." She wondered briefly if the little boy had seen it. Probably not. He'd been playing several yards away from where his truck had washed up.

  "You're right about that. We'll take it from here," Joe said with a compassionate smile. "You look like you could use some warm clothes and a hot drink. You can go on home if you want. I'll swing by later to let you know the details."

  "Sounds good, but I'd just as soon hang around if you don't mind. Still, I think I will get changed and maybe grab a bowl of soup at the Clam Digger."

  "Don't mind at all." Joe shifted his attention to Tom. "See what's keeping Clarkston. Tell him we need that winch right away"

  "I'm on it."

  Joe waited until the water receded, then moved in for a closer look, intent on searching for clues.

  Chilled to the bone, Helen hurried back to her car, passing Tom on the way. He tipped his head slightly in acknowledgment.

  When she reached the edge of the parking lot, Helen noticed a forest green Bonneville pull in beside the patrol cars. An older man, thin with silver-gray hair, got out. Opening the trunk, he brought out a worn leather bag and slipped into a gray-green rain slicker. He'd aged some and gotten a lot more wrinkles and more gray hair. Helen hurried toward him.

  "George?"

  He turned and closed the trunk in one graceful move. A wide smile graced his lips and moved into his silvery blue eyes. "Helen. My goodness, is it really you?" He dropped the bag and spread out his arms in a welcoming embrace.
/>   Helen hugged him long and hard. "It's so good to see you. What are you doing here?" George Fisher had been a medical examiner in Portland while she'd worked for the police bureau there.

  He picked up his bag. "Moved to Bay Village about two weeks ago. I'm in the process of retiring, so I thought I'd work on call down here. So far they've been keeping me pretty busy. What about you? I knew you'd quit police work, but. . .."

  "I moved to Bay Village after Ian died."

  "I heard about that." He looked her over, his eyes filling with concern. "You're soaked."

  "Yes, I'm the one who found the body. Had to wait for the sheriff."

  "Too bad about that. Did you know him, the victim, I mean?"

  "So far there isn't enough of him showing to make any kind of identification." She told him about the tree stump. "I was just going to the restaurant to change and get something hot to eat."

  "You do that. I'd better get to work. Can we talk later? We have a lot of catching up to do."

  "I'd like nothing better."

  The Clam Digger was warm and noisy with its usual lunch crowd. The tempting smells set her tummy to rumbling. After ordering a bowl of fish stew and a chamomile tea, Helen headed for the bathroom.

  Once she'd changed, she returned to her table by the window at the west end. From there she could see the officers working in the distance. They'd drawn several curious onlookers, who were kept at bay by an officer outside the taped area. A corner of the tape had broken loose and now waved in the wind like a grounded kite's tail.

  The waitress brought her order, and Helen concentrated on easing the dull ache in her stomach. The stew was excellent, and while it satisfied her hunger, it did nothing to ease her concerns. She sipped at her tea, willing herself to stay put and relax. That lasted about two minutes. She couldn't stand sitting there doing nothing with all the action out on the beach.

  Helen paid her bill, transferred her tea to a takeout cup, and headed toward the door. On her way to the car she pulled out her cell phone and made a call to Eleanor Crane.