Chapter 8

Nero didn't end up trying to speak to Amy Blass, not after finding the mail carrier's body. By the time the CSPD finished interviewing him, he wasn't prepared to talk to a stranger about the loss of their child. Instead, he retreated to the relative safety of Cabin Five. He'd also forgotten to mention the break-in, which seemed small compared to finding a dead man.

"Make sure you're available," Chief Dear had said before letting Nero go home—well, commanded. "We may have more questions for you. Don't talk to reporters."

He'd stifled a laugh at that, figuring that Dear maybe wasn't aware of his past career. Still, Nero had no intention of writing publicly about what had happened. The postal officer deserved justice, not Nero's rambling account of discovering a murder victim.

And where would he go anyway? His mother's house? Not that Chief Dear or anyone else in town knew that Nero was one four-hundred-square-foot cabin away from being homeless.

The officer who'd responded to his call had told him the victim's name was Ned Barker. Probably he wasn't supposed to share that kind of information but he, the cop, was new to the job, Nero figured, and obviously a bit queasy about the dead man.

Nero figured he wasn't considered a suspect—he'd never met the man before finding him dead. But he had discovered the body—so maybe he was? Dear had seemed more harried than suspicious though. And it was obvious the shorthanded police force was still struggling to regain its footing after the weird stuff that went down in January. Nero for sure wasn't a cop, but he was a damn good investigator. Why not put his skills to use and see if he could help out CSPD?

"Because every cop in the world loves it so much when amateurs interfere with active investigations," Nero muttered as he attempted to pace from one side of the cabin to the other. His voice sounded loud in the too quiet space.

He was antsy and needed something to distract himself. Dead bodies weren't new to him; Nero had seen them before. But this time he'd been the first person on the scene. He'd been the one to call 9-1-1—and thank god he'd gotten a signal at that moment. He'd been the one to place his index and middle fingers against the man's throat to see if there was a chance he had a pulse.

The turtleneck Nero had pushed aside had still been warm, and so had the carrier's skin. But there'd been no pulse, and Nero hadn't really expected one. Not with the victim's head at that angle.

The traitorous raven had flown off almost immediately, leaving Nero alone with the body. He—Nero, not the dead man—thought he heard something in the woods. But after peering into the dense brush and the trees grown too close together with no results, Nero had convinced himself it was nothing more than the clumsy bird and his own overactive imagination—although his imagination had never been quite this overactive before.

Still, while waiting for the police to arrive, Nero hadn't been able to rid himself of the feeling of being watched. Spied on. Even now, several hours later, he felt oddly exposed and twitchy, like a very large target had been painted on his back. He'd found himself staring into the woods at odd times over the course of the day. They'd simply stared back, offering him nothing.

The officer who'd responded to his call had looked around the scene, but he hadn't found anything and, not wanting to disturb possible evidence, he hadn't gone very far. Once other officers had shown up, focus had been on the scene at hand, not the looming trees around them.

On the short trip back to the cabin, Nero had driven past the Steam Donkey. The parking lot seemed suspiciously full, and Nero hadn't stopped. The last thing he wanted was to be interrogated by the citizens of Cooper Springs. It would happen eventually, but it didn't have to happen right now.

When he'd caught himself looking for Forrest Cooper's purple vintage farm truck in the lot, Nero stepped on the gas pedal. He was far too intrigued by the lanky, bad-humored man as it was. Notably, Cooper still had not returned his call, and Nero suspected the message had been deleted—which was fine. He had no idea why Forrest Cooper had taken such an instant dislike to him that the man wouldn't even return a simple phone call.

Now, Nero's not-quite-pacing picked up a bit.

"Too intrigued, Nero. Note to self: you are the unemployed drifter. He is the descendant of the founding Coopers and obviously emotionally unavailable if his snarky comments are anything to go by," Nero said to himself as he turned at his double bed and tried not to think about how much the situation sounded like a Hallmark movie.

"It's for the best," he told himself about his decision to end the relationship that hadn't even started. "I'm not staying in town. I don't need to add to my own baggage." He paused at the small window with quirky curtains. "And I probably need to stop talking to myself out loud too."

* * *

Nero finally satdown at the cabin's miniscule table and opened his precious laptop, intending first to work on the podcast about his search for Donny. But instead, his fingers typed in "Ned Barker" + "Cooper Springs" + "Murder" and hit Enter.

He knew what he was doing was a coping mechanism. He couldn't bring the mail carrier back to life, but he could learn as much as possible about him. The same way that, after twenty-four years, he still wanted to solve the disappearance of his cousin. Did he know the likelihood of solving either mystery was small? Yes, but he wasn't giving up.

The first result was a Facebook page that apparently substituted as the main news source for the town. The sting of being laid off flared. This wasn't news and these weren't facts.

"Chief Dear must just love this," he muttered as he scrolled further down the page. There were tons of posts and comments about Barker's death. After only a few hours, there was already speculation about what might have happened. Was it a cover-up? Was Bigfoot involved? Barker's ex-brother-in-law and also head of the Cooper Springs postal service, one Oliver Cox, had apparently been VP of the local Bigfoot Society. A commenter brought up this fact as a possible-conspiracy angle. Nero frowned. Did they think Bigfoot committed the murder? Someone else chimed in that maybe aliens were responsible.

"Okaaay," Nero said to the screen. "Moving right along."

"Anonymous" claimed to have seen "someone weird" creeping around a few days earlier and speculated that was the killer. A moderator then piped up—one Robert Butler, Nero noted—asking that people please be respectful as someone important to the town had died.

Nero continued scrolling in the hope that he'd find worthwhile information. Mostly, folks were expressing their sadness that Barker had been murdered and wondering what was happening in their town. Some blamed it on newcomers. Nero winced at that; he definitely fell into the new-to-town category.

Then, buried deep in the comments, another anonymous commenter said, Maybe someone should look into other deaths. Didn't Ernst Cooper die the same way?

Heart pounding and fingers fumbling over the keys, Nero typed in "Ernst Cooper" + "Death" and hit Enter once again.

The Daily World—the Aberdeen online newspaper—began to load. Slowly. Nero was about to give up when it finally finished. He clicked on the old headline, Death in Local Pioneer Family.

Ernst Cooper, grandson of the founder of Cooper Springs, died on October 20, 2004, due to a fall. Cooper was found outside his home by his grandson, Forrest Cooper, and could not be revived.

The article went on to talk about Ernst Cooper's life and how he'd become reclusive as he'd aged. As a young man, he'd been a part of the business community but as the area's economy shrank and the last of the mills closed, Cooper turned his back on the town his father and grandfather had built in order to care for his grandchildren.

"Judgey much? He took care of his grandchildren, for fuck's sake."

His death had been ruled an accident, but, like Ned Barker, Cooper's neck had been broken and he'd had a head injury. Nero wished he could get his hands on the original case file.

Sitting back, he stared at the screen. "What are the chances they both die in a similar way but in vastly different circumstances? Was it a coincidence? Barker's death certainly couldn't be confused as an accident, that's for sure."

Sitting forward again, Nero continued down the rabbit hole he'd entered. He was about to take a stretch break when a general article about Cooper Springs popped up. It appeared to be one of those town history link sites, and while he knew it wouldn't have anything about Barker's death, he wondered what other information it may provide.

He clicked on it.

The page was old and appeared to not be maintained. There were a few gritty scanned-in photos of Cooper Springs in the 1880s and early 1900s scattered along the webpage's edges. Sitka spruces, large enough that ten logging men couldn't wrap themselves around their bases. Logging trucks caravanning down the main street, all loaded down with a piece of a tree trunk so huge that one truck wasn't enough to haul it. Many of the links inside the site were broken, but not the one leading to a four-line On This Day article.

On This Day: Forrest and Lani Cooper, brother and sister, came to live with their grandfather, Ernst Cooper. Ernst is quoted as saying he is pleased to have his grandchildren living in his home. After spending their early lives in a pioneer encampment somewhere in the Olympic forest, the children seem happy and healthy. Ernst Cooper declined to be interviewed for this story.

Curious and curiouser.

The author was Robert Butler, one of the moderators for the Cooper Springs Facebook page—and the man Rufus had mentioned at the fire scene, the one who used to run the Sentinel. Nero noted his name, intending to look this Robert person up at some point.

The search continued. Nero used a variety of keywords and techniques from his days as a reporter, but he couldn't find more information about the Coopers as children. Which was fine. He was interested in Ned Barker, not Forrest Cooper. But it didn't hurt to write down what he had learned. He turned to a fresh page in his notebook.

Forrest Cooper – owns a lavender farm outside of town, Purple Phaze.

Nero rolled his eyes; Cooper probably found the name amusing and it explained the color of his truck.

Forrest's younger sister, Lani Cooper – one of the officers who'd shown up at Ned Barker's crime scene. After being shot in the thigh last month, Officer Cooper was still using one crutch and Nero very much got the feeling Chief Dear hadn't been able to convince her to stay back at the station.

Their grandfather, Ernst Cooper – died from a fall and a broken neck like Ned Barker.

Nero wasn't sure what kind of fall ended up with a broken neck but from the meager accounts of his death, Ernst Cooper seemed to have been healthy before the accident. There was no mention of stairs or horseback riding. Ned Barker had been a healthy-looking mail carrier. Surely he'd been in good physical shape as well.

Call Cooper again.

He looked at the last line on the list. "I'm a sucker for punishment."

But who better to tell him about Ned Barker than the grandson of one of his friends? The grandson who'd likely known Ned Barker fairly well. The hot grandson with smoldering eyes and an ass that Nero very much wouldn't mind squeezing.

He snorted. "I am fucking ridiculous."

Before Nero could set his fingers on the keyboard again, there was a banging on his door.

"Um, hello?" he called out over the thumping of his heart. He pressed the lid to his laptop closed. "Who is it?"

While he'd been online, night had fallen. The sky was dark and overcast, the only light coming from the streetlamps and businesses across the roadway. Nero hadn't thought to turn on the outside light.

There was no one in town who would come to his door except for Martin Purdy and Nick Waugh, and they weren't the type to surprise him without good reason. He appreciated that in his de facto landlords.

"Martin? Nick? Is that you?"

No answer.

A healthy dose of self-preservation had him stepping to the side of the window and peeking out through the curtain, to try and see who—or what—was out there.

No one stood on the tiny area at the top of the front steps as far as he could tell. There were no shadows, no silhouette of a person waiting for him to answer. Not even the pizza delivery he craved but had yet to call in.

Maybe it had been a wrong address. Someone playing a prank on him. Or just the wind.

Cautiously, Nero moved to the door and slowly turned the handle. He felt like a bit player in a horror movie, but he'd rather feel stupid than dead. It wasn't a basement door, and he wasn't a virgin. He'd be fine. Unfortunately, the image of Ned Barker's lifeless body, his neck crooked all wrong, popped into his head.

He pulled the door open with a jerk, revealing nothing but rain coming down in sheets. No one was there. His pulse raced, his body readying for flight.

Nero called out another cautious, "Hello?"

Again, there was no answer, but by then he didn't expect one.

As he started to shut the door, Nero glanced down. Maybe someone had been making the rounds and stuck a flyer under the welcome mat or something. He didn't see a brochure but on top of the weatherworn rubberized mat lay a wrist-sized loop made from some kind of grass.

Tentatively, he bent down and picked it up, then studied the strange thing as he held it between his thumb and index finger. It hadn't been there when he'd come home, had it? Had he been so oblivious when he'd returned to the cabin that he hadn't seen it? Or had someone left it more recently?

Nero couldn't shake the feeling that he hadn't missed it, but he also couldn't be sure. Had persons unknown crept to his front door, knocked, then left the weird bracelet for him to find?

If so, why? What could it mean? After the break-in last night, this… offering seemed odd. Was it related to everything else going on, or was Nero just paranoid? He was going to go with paranoid.

Glancing around and still not seeing anything that seemed off—the town looked just like it always did, fairly quiet at this time of night—Nero was tempted to toss the loop back to the ground. Instead, he brought it inside, setting it on the kitchenette counter next to his cell phone while he contemplated his next steps.

He wasn't leaving town but he wanted to get away from the four walls of the cabin; the small house felt claustrophobic and the strange knocking had thrown him off more than he wanted to admit. He decided to take himself for a drive, maybe grab a bite to eat in Aberdeen.

When he arrived at his car, Nero saw Cooper's truck pass by on the highway. As he watched, it slowed down and turned into the resort's parking lot. Assuming Cooper was there for Nick or Martin, Nero climbed behind the steering wheel of his beat-up SUV.

Right when Nero pulled his door shut, the asshole blared his horn and indicated with a jam of his finger that Nero should stay put.

Nero was easygoing, but he wasn't a damn dog to be ordered to sit and stay.

Yes, he wanted to talk to Cooper, but not when the guy was obviously feeling the need to be an asshole. Ignoring the gesture, Nero started the engine and put his car in reverse.

He could be an asshole too.

Except fucking Forrest Cooper blocked him in.

"What the fuck?" After weeks of pretending Nero either didn't exist or giving him the cold shoulder, Cooper was going to stop him from driving away? He'd had a shit day, as one does after discovering a dead body, and an unhinged Forrest Cooper was the last person he wanted to deal with. And, he realized, he was hangry.