“Then I should go out there.”
I chose my words carefully. “Adam and I have it under control, Dad. We’ll take care of it.”
“Even so, they’ll want to talk to me.”
“Okay, don’t worry. I’ll arrange it.”
But I wouldn’t. In the morning, he’d have forgotten our conversation entirely.
“What about the F-150?” he went on with a precision that surprised me. Sometimes details flooded out with perfect recall like that. The past wasn’t gone. It was still in his head somewhere, just hidden away in places he couldn’t always find. If only we could help him look.
“What do you mean, Dad?”
“Well, the F-150 was abandoned near your namesake lake. That’s on the other side of the county from Witch Tree. And yet you still think the truck was connected to the boy’s disappearance, don’t you?”
“Agent Reed thinks so.”
“So why take the truck so far away?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve always wondered how he got away from the lake,” Dad went on, as if he were still Sheriff Tom Ginn. “It’s remote out there. How did he get away from that area once he left the truck behind? Did someone pick him up? Did he have another car waiting for him?”
“That’s a good question,” I said. And it was.
We didn’t have many conversations like that anymore, and they never lasted long. I treasured them when we did. For those brief moments, I had my father back, and I remembered the man he was. I wished it could last all night, but the heat began to make me tired. As we sat next to each other, I found myself drifting off, giving in to the exhaustion of the day. I blinked my heavy eyes and tried to stay awake, but it was no use. Eventually, I surrendered to the hypnosis of the fire.
I awoke sometime later with a start. When I checked my watch, I saw that nearly two hours had passed. Dad was exactly where he’d been, still sitting straight up in his Shaker chair, his blue eyes wide awake. The fire was waning, burning down to the last embers.
A footfall landed on the hardwood floor under the archway behind me. I realized that the noise of the front door opening and closing had awakened me. When I turned around, I saw a vanishing swish of blond hair. A girl disappeared into the shadows, and I heard the squeal of the old wooden steps as she climbed to her bedroom.
Anna was home.
Suddenly, it felt like a good night.
*
The next morning, early, I drove to Stanton. I left Dad in Anna’s care for the day. I only had time to stop briefly at the Nowhere Café to fill up my travel mug with coffee and take out a blueberry muffin for the road. I wanted to talk to Breezy, but she wasn’t there for her morning shift. I still felt bad about the previous night, and I wanted to make sure we got past it.
The winter gray hung over my drive east, like an old blanket thrown across the sky. The roads were empty except for the occasional deer hunting for fallen twigs under the snow. I made my way to the state prison north of Stanton, spent an hour checking in through the bureaucracy, and then another half hour waiting in a small conference room with concrete walls.
Eventually, they brought in Keith Whalen.
I hadn’t seen him since the trial where I’d testified about our affair. I wasn’t sure how I expected him to look or what I would feel when I saw him again. His thick brown hair had been cut short, leaving him without a cowlick to toss back. The lines on his face were deeper, but he still had the same sad brown eyes. He was even leaner than he’d been in the past, to the point of being skinny. Despite our history, not much had changed for me. I still looked at him like he was my high school English teacher and I was still eighteen years old.
“Shelby Lake,” he said with surprise.
“Hello, Keith.”
He took a moment to assess me the way I’d assessed him. “You look good, Shelby. Not very happy, but you look good.”
I resented that he could still read me so well. “How are you?”
“You mean, how has prison life suited me for ten years? The days are all the same in here. After a while, you look forward to it being that way. You don’t like having the routine disrupted.”
“Like by me?”
“No, not you. You’re a welcome distraction.”
I found myself struggling for words, like this was a cocktail party and I was making small talk. “You’ve served half your sentence. That’s good.”
“I don’t count the time. It’s a waste.”
“Do you read a lot? Do you need books? I could send you some.”
“It’s sweet of you to be concerned for my welfare after all this time,” he replied, in a tone that made sure I knew it wasn’t sweet at all. “Yes, I read. I write, too. You’ll be amused to know that I turned my Ursulina story into a children’s book. Isn’t that what you told me to do? A publisher actually accepted it, at least until they found out about my circumstances. Then it quickly became ‘thanks but no thanks.’ Oh, well.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What do you want, Shelby?” he asked impatiently. “Why are you here? Welcome distraction or not, seeing you is hard for me on all sorts of levels. Partly because you’re the reason I’m in here. Partly because I know I’m going to spend the next several months seeing your face again whenever I close my eyes. And it took me years to get you out of my head the first time.”
I thought of all the things I could say to that.
Then I said, “I’m not the reason you’re in here, Keith.”
“No? Well, it doesn’t matter. Just tell me what’s going on.”
“The Mittel Pines Resort,” I said, studying his face for a reaction. His expression was blank.
“What about it?”
“Do you know it?”
“It’s that old ruin near Witch Tree, right? So what?”
“Have you ever been there?”
“Didn’t it close like five hundred years ago? No. I’ve never been there. What is this about?”
“We think that’s where Jeremiah was taken after he was kidnapped.”
Keith leaned across the table. I could smell his closeness. “Ah. I see. Is this the part where I break into a nervous sweat because you’re so close to finding the body I managed to hide?”
“I don’t know. Is it?”
He fired his words at me. “My story hasn’t changed, Shelby. I had nothing to do with Jeremiah’s disappearance. I don’t know what happened to the boy. I was nowhere near the national forest that day. And since you saw me in the cemetery in Everywhere that same afternoon, I don’t know how you think I managed to take the boy out to this old resort, kill him, bury him, and then get back to town in time for you to see me visiting my wife’s grave.”
That was what I’d expected him to say. Honestly, I’d come to this place just to hear those words from his mouth.
“You’re right.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re right. I don’t see how you could have done it. The timing doesn’t work.”
“Well, doesn’t that make me feel better.”
“The fact is, I never really thought you were involved in his disappearance.”
“That’s big of you, Shelby.”
“But I have to ask. Is there anything at all you can tell me about Jeremiah? Or about the Mittel Pines Resort? I’m not trying to trick you, Keith. Back then, I know you couldn’t say a word, even if you knew more than you were telling us. But now, well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? You’re already in here. If you can help me, I wish you would.”
“I don’t owe you anything, Shelby.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Regardless, I can’t help you. I don’t know a thing.”
“Okay.”
He waited, and I didn’t say anything more.
“Are we done?” he
asked. “Is that all?”
“That’s all.”
Keith stood up. He took a long look at my face, as if he were trying to memorize it. I was about to signal to the guard to take him away, but Keith stopped me by sitting down again. His jaw softened. His hard eyes were suddenly full of emotion.
“I made a mistake back then, Shelby.”
“You sure did.”
“No. You don’t understand. My mistake was to hide the evidence.”
“What do you mean?”
“Yes, I took the jewelry. And the gun, too. I threw it all in Black Lake. I admit that. It was a stupid thing to do. But the only reason I did it was to protect myself. I was desperate that night. I panicked. I knew how it would look when the police came and saw Colleen’s body and my gun lying next to her. I knew that you’d tell everyone about our affair sooner or later, and then I’d have a motive to go along with a dead wife. I could see all that coming. That’s why I tried to make it look like a thief did it. But I didn’t kill Colleen.”
I got out of the chair and waved to the guard. I wanted Keith out of there right now. I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want to listen to him lie to me again. The guard unlocked the door and came into the room and took Keith by the arm, but Keith resisted long enough to bend over the table.
“You asked if I could help you, Shelby. You asked if I knew anything about Jeremiah. Well, here’s what I know. I’m innocent. I didn’t murder anyone. Maybe there’s no connection between Colleen’s death and what happened to that boy. Or maybe you were right all along, and Jeremiah knew who really killed my wife.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
A cold case like Jeremiah’s disappearance never goes completely cold. It was always in my thoughts. We kept a file cabinet in our basement office that contained everything related to the case. Search results. Photographs of evidence. Transcripts of interviews. Plus my personal notes of what had happened in those early days. Every few months, on a slow day or a Sunday afternoon, I would pull it all out and go over everything page by page to see if there was something we’d missed. After Adrian joined the force, we’d often do it together. I think it made him feel closer to his brother.
Sometimes the review left us with new questions, new people to talk to, or new places to search. None of it led to any breakthroughs, but it meant I was often on the phone with Special Agent Bentley Reed to talk about the case. He came back to town several times over the years, including on the one-year and five-year anniversaries of the disappearance, when the national media was revisiting the mystery. A strange thing happened along the way. He and I became friends. We’d have meals together. I told him about my struggles with Dad and Anna. He told me about his wife, his four kids, and his drug-addicted brother. I was pretty sure he didn’t tell many other people about him.
When I got back to the sheriff’s office later that morning, Reed was there to lead the investigation again, and he kissed me on the cheek. Physically, he hadn’t changed much. He was an imposing man, in good shape, and I was willing to bet he could still give younger agents a run for their money at the gym. He’d shaved away his thinning hair and his goatee, probably because it had gone completely gray a while back. He wore a suit and tie, but he’d come prepared for the January weather with a hooded winter coat and North Face boots.
He was still as sharp and focused as ever. We reviewed topographical maps of the area and studied ground and aerial photographs of the ruins at the Mittel Pines Resort. The team laid out a search strategy and grid. Then, while a dozen FBI forensic specialists headed for the resort itself, Reed asked me to drive him back to the original place on the national forest road where Jeremiah had disappeared. He wanted to follow the route the kidnapper would have taken on the way to Witch Tree and see the world through his eyes.
Being Reed’s chauffeur again after ten years gave me a feeling of déjà vu. As we drove, I told him about my conversations with Ellen and Dennis Sloan and about Anna taking Jeremiah to the ruins of the resort a few months before the disappearance. I also told him about my visit with Keith Whalen, even though I didn’t believe that Keith was telling me the truth about Colleen’s murder.
I told him my father’s thoughts about the white F-150, too.
“Interesting,” Reed replied as we rattled along the dirt road. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that very same question. I don’t see how the driver of the truck could have gotten away from the lake without help. Either someone met him or someone left a car for him. If that’s true, there’s a witness around here who knows something.”
“Or we could be wrong about the truck.”
“True. Do you believe that?”
I shrugged my shoulders. It would make the case easier if I believed that, but I didn’t. “No, you’re right. The truck was wiped down for a reason. It’s connected to Jeremiah somehow.”
Reed was quiet, looking out the car window at the trees. We were close to the spot. When we got there, I parked, and the two of us climbed out into the bitter cold. The forest was more open in January because the trees were bare, and you could see into the deep stretches of wilderness on both sides. Snow clogged the brush and spilled across the road in windswept ridges. Where there had once been nothing but a bicycle left behind, there was now an unofficial memorial that attracted locals, strangers, and mystery hunters at all times of the year. People came here to look for clues and pray for answers. They always left something behind. There were dozens of white crosses. Stone cairns. Stuffed animals. Flowers that had died with the coming of winter. Hand-written notes with messages of inspiration.
Come home, Jeremiah.
The lights are on for you, Jeremiah.
You’re not forgotten, Jeremiah.
During the warmer months, volunteers tried to keep the site clean and well maintained, but the memorial grew forlorn over the winter as weather took its toll. Reed looked up and down the road and into the trees. We’d been here together countless times. Nothing was ever going to change, but you never knew when the ghosts would decide to talk.
Reed shoved his gloved hands into his coat pockets. “If we’re right about the F-150 being connected to the crime, that means someone stole the truck in Martin’s Point and grabbed Jeremiah right here about two hours later. And now it looks like whoever it was took the boy to the abandoned resort, which is another hour away.”
“That’s right.”
“This resort sounds like a place that most locals know about but most outsiders probably wouldn’t know about.”
“Yes, unless they stayed there when it was open.”
Reed nodded. “Okay, that’s true. A visitor would remember it, too. On the other hand, the resort was shuttered for more than a decade before Jeremiah disappeared, right? So if our perp stayed there, it was a long time ago. The question is: Why take the boy there? Was there anything personally significant about that location for the kidnapper? It’s a long way to go with a victim in the car, and there are plenty of other deserted hiding places closer to where we are. But he chose the resort.”
“You think that was his destination all along,” I said.
“I think so. It’s not a place you come upon by accident. He knew where he was going.”
My face was cold. I shivered. I couldn’t take my eyes off the collection of crosses pushing out of the snow. We were alone out here, and the wind moaned and rattled the empty branches. Ten years ago, we’d been here in the summer, when the forest was overflowing with life, full of insects and birds and plants all reaching for the warmth of the sunlight. Now that world was dead until spring.
“The kidnapping had to be a crime of opportunity,” I pointed out. “No one could have known that Jeremiah would be out here. Adrian didn’t even want him to come along. So the boy couldn’t have been a specific target for anyone. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Reed frowned. “In other w
ords, we’re right back where we were when this all started.”
“A predator.”
“I’m afraid so.”
I thought for the millionth time about Jeremiah riding his bike that day. I could almost hear the squeak of the wheels if I listened hard enough. I’d tried for years to think of an explanation for his disappearance that didn’t go back to the horrible reality of a monster abducting him, but I always ended up in the same place.
Right here on this dirt road, in a collision of good and evil.
Right here with the Ursulina.
*
The media was waiting for us outside the resort. They surrounded Agent Reed, but he deflected their questions as we passed through the police barrier that was guarded by one of my fellow deputies. We hiked along the resort driveway and across the creek bridge, following the trail of numerous sets of footprints. In the clearing where the ruins of the old cabins were located, the FBI team was hard at work.
They’d already made one discovery. In the toilet located inside the cabin where the shuttlecock had been found, they’d identified remnants of human feces, which had to have been left long after the resort had been shut down and the water turned off. Of course, there was no way to know who had left that evidence behind. The resort had been a magnet for trespassers for twenty years, and no doubt many of them had answered the call of nature while they were here. Like everything else, the samples would go back to the FBI lab for DNA analysis in the weeks ahead.
As the search continued, the afternoon passed slowly in the cold. Darkness began to sink across the clearing. We were all hoping for fast answers, but the FBI never rushed, and that made everyone impatient. I saw Adrian patrolling the fringe of the forest, wearing a wet path into the snow. Seeing his lips move made me think he was talking to himself. Blaming himself.
I went over to make sure he was okay.
“You don’t need to hang out here,” I told him. “Why don’t you go spend time with your parents? I’ll call you if we find anything.”
The Deep, Deep Snow Page 21