by Gregg Olsen
The question catches me off guard.
“How’d you know he has a beard?”
“Small town. I know things,” she explains.
I look toward the door, sinking a little inside.
“And no, it’s not the beard. He just seems like a nice guy. Interesting. There could be something there. Or maybe not.”
“Do you want to sleep with him?” Mindy asks, egging me on like she used to when we saw each other more regularly. Her teasing feels comfortable. I’ve missed her. I look at my phone. It’s only half past the hour. He’s late. He hasn’t texted that he couldn’t come.
I fill her in on what I found out from Tyra and Chantelle.
“Look before you tell me that it’s not our case—like Sheriff—I know there is a connection. The girls were extremely close. They had to sneak around to maintain their friendship because Ellie was practically under house arrest.”
“Wasn’t she in school?”
I make a quick scan of the door.
He’s not here.
“No,” I say. “Her mom homeschooled her at the behest of her husband, a real control freak.”
Mindy is doing what she does best. She’s processing the information like it’s a crime scene.
I love that about her.
“So, your theory is that, what? The girls plotted the murder of their parents? If that’s the case, why is Tyra’s dad still alive?”
“The plot was one sided. A game for Tyra. She was never going to get rid of her mother. She just told Ellie how she was going to do it—and then said she did.”
“How could she get away with such a ruse?”
“Easier than you think. Tyra knew her friend had no internet. No way of knowing there was nothing on the news. Her phone, her lifeline, was gone.”
Mindy looks up from her drink.
“That’s twisted, Megan.”
“As Sheriff says, ‘like a soft-serve cone’.”
I look down at my phone, and I hear his voice.
“Hey, Detective,” Dan says as he joins us.
“Hey,” I say. “This is my coworker, Mindy Newsom.”
He smiles. “We’ve met.”
“Yes,” she replies. “At the shop.”
“Didn’t know you worked there too, Megan.”
“She’s also a crime scene tech. And a damned good one.”
“If I were that good,” Mindy says as Dan folds his lean frame into the space next to me, “I’d be somewhere else digging up bodies instead of planting flowers.”
Dan’s wearing a lightweight quilted jacket over a T-shirt that stretches tightly across his chest. He smells a little like a campfire, but not in a bad way. He orders a local distillery’s Scotch.
I should have ordered one too. I drink wine at home only because it goes good with fish sticks or whatever I move from the freezer to the oven when I sit at my table.
Listening to my life unspool on the tapes.
We stay clear of the Wheaton and Burbank investigations and focus our conversation on other things.
Pleasant things. His farm. His woodcarving. Dan looks at me, expecting me to dive into my life. Mindy catches the look and throws me a lifeline and talks up her family and her so far less than successful quest to develop a hydrangea hybrid that will thrive in sunny spaces.
She doesn’t know my story. Not like Sheriff.
And certainly not what I disclosed to Dr. Albright.
“What about you, Detective?” Dan asks.
I shift in my chair. “Megan, please.”
“Okay. What’s your story?”
That question invites me to lie and I don’t want to lie anymore. And yet I do.
“Parents died in a car crash when I was a kid. No other family to take us in.”
He looks at me with eyes full of kindness.
“I’m sorry.”
I acknowledge his concern with a slight nod. I hate that I’ve lived a life of covering my tracks.
“Us?” he asks. “Do you have siblings?”
“A brother. He’s stationed overseas.”
And he hates me. Wants nothing to do with me. It’s my fault. All of it!
Awkwardness hangs over me, tightening my throat. Almost choking me. I don’t want to say any more. I glance over at Mindy.
She knows me. At least enough to be a lifeline.
“Yeah,” she says, touching my hand. “Megan has been through a lot, but she’s the best person I know.”
I feel like she’s selling me, but it puts a period on the conversation.
“Didn’t mean to pry,” Dan says.
“It’s fine.”
We move the subject to the next day and what each of us is doing. Mindy’s doing flowers for a funeral. Dan’s installing a front gate.
And me? I’ve got a killer to catch.
We pay our tabs and walk out to our respective cars. Gulls perched behind the bar disperse overhead as the moon sends a path of light over the black water of the bay. It’s a golden trail from Port Townsend to somewhere far away. Mindy heads to her van on the other side of the lot.
“I always park next to the road,” she told me one time, “because my van is a billboard.”
“Hey,” Dan says, lingering by my car, “I’m going to an art show on Saturday. You know, check out the competition. If you’re free, want to come, Megan?”
My Saturday is already planned as a day to catch up on bills and other things that have been set on the backburner since the start of the Wheaton investigation.
This time my lie isn’t about protecting me, but about putting me at risk. In a good way, I think.
“Totally free. Would love to go.”
Dan gives me his handsome smile.
“All right then. I’ll text you the details.”
“Good night, Dan,” I say.
“Night, Megan.”
When I turn the key in the ignition, the sound a phone makes when charging gets my attention. It’s a soft buzz. I instinctively reach for it; it’s tucked in between the seat and the console. It’s not my phone. In my haste to meet with Dan I’d completely forgotten about the phone recovered in Chantelle’s backyard. It’s a terrible lapse and I know it immediately. I should have logged it when I got into the office. I fish it out by pulling on the cord. It’s powered up. I stare at the illuminated screen. The wallpaper is of a face, though covered by a multitude of apps.
And yet I know who it is.
It’s a familiar face.
Thirty-Eight
Sheriff is in his duct-tape upholstered chair reading the Leader. Country music plays softly from his radio. An oily fast food bag pokes up through the trash receptacle by his office door. Normally, I’d remark on it, though this time I don’t.
I don’t even say good morning.
“I need you to come with me out to the Wheaton place. I’ll fill you in on the way.”
The urgency in my voice jolts him to his feet.
Just as we head out the door, Nan calls out that the crime lab is on the phone.
“Should I tell them to call back?”
I snap the receiver right from her hand. I might have hurt her, but I really don’t care. She makes every moment annoying. And I’m pretty sure that’s why she does it.
“Hi Detective, it’s Marley again,” says a familiar voice. “Got some info for you. It’s good stuff too.”
I can tell right now he’s of the CSI TV generation; you find them stuck in the mundane environment of a crime lab, thinking it would be all nonstop fun—kicked off by an anthemic, bombastic cut by The Who.
“I’m all ears,” I say.
“Okay. Good. Well here’s where we are: The hammer had on it the blood of three different people: we’re thinking three victims; two female and one male. The hair and also one blood sample is a match for our victim, Mrs. Wheaton. The other two aren’t in the system, but the female victim’s DNA ladders back to both the male and Mrs. Wheaton. The only other tool found on the property that had any blood w
as a shovel. Again Mrs. Wheaton.”
I take it in.
“Crazy, right?”
“I guess you could call it that. Same with the spatter?”
“Right. All three victims’ blood is present.”
“Thanks, Marley. Send the report.”
I don’t even wait until we are all the way out the door.
“Three victims, crime lab says,” I say as we jump in his car.
Sheriff gives me a puzzled look.
“What do you make of that?”
I pull the door shut and buckle up. “Sarah,” I tell him. “She might actually be a Seattle girl named Ellie Burbank.”
He’s all ears on the drive out to Snow Creek. I tell him that Ellie, in fact, might not be at the bottom of Lake Crescent, and that Susan Whitcomb is more than likely alive—her supposed death was merely an inspiration for the Burbank homicides—and he updates me about the Torrance case and how national media has already started calling.
“And her aunt is sure that’s Ellie? Not Sarah?”
“That’s what she thinks.”
“All of a sudden, we’re Ground Zero for murder,” he says.
I don’t disagree.
“We need to find Merritt Wheaton,” I remind him. “He’s out there somewhere.”
“Right. This is only the beginning.”
I look out the window thinking that this case has been the most bizarre I’ve ever been involved with.
At least in an official capacity.
Thirty-Nine
Bernadine Chesterfield, grandstander and attention seeker extraordinaire, a woman who would snap her gold-framed ethics code in a million pieces just to be in the middle of something noteworthy, sits by the road in a sagging heap.
We pitch to a stop and we get out.
I loathe this woman, and I’m not alone. She’s crying and hunched into a big ball. She looks like she’s had the wits scared out of her.
It’s not quite that. It’s something else.
Sheriff approaches first, and I follow a step or two behind. Bernie and I have a history. A decidedly mixed one. She doesn’t know that he’s the one who made the complaint about her conduct with the media during the Wheaton memorial service. Short as it was.
As fake as it might have been.
“I’m so stupid,” she says over and over. “So damn stupid.”
No argument comes from me—or Sheriff.
She doesn’t need any prodding. She unfolds herself and starts talking. Her blue slacks are torn and there’s blood on her sleeve.
She sees us looking at her clothing and the blood oozing from her arm.
“I’m fine. That’s just a scrape. I ran like hell.”
“What happened?” Sheriff asks.
She steadies herself against the car.
“I came out here, you know, to see how the kids were doing. They seemed so lost. Really. I just wanted to help.”
I don’t ask if she was making a court mandated visit because I know she wasn’t. I know her M.O.
“The house was quiet, and I went looking for them. I thought maybe they’d be in the orchard, but they weren’t. I got kind of worried. With everything going on around here, I wasn’t sure what to do. I mean, I thought something had happened to them.”
I want to tell her to cut to the chase, but I don’t and Sheriff nudges her along.
“I went back into the house to leave a note. My cell doesn’t work out here so I couldn’t call.”
“None work out here, Bernie,” Sheriff says.
She nods. “Right, so I wrote a note and as I went back to my car, I thought I heard something coming from the barn. It sounded like a hurt animal or something. Real muffled. I went inside, oh God. I saw something that I shouldn’t see.”
“What, Bernie? What did you see?” I ask, knowing that I’m not a patient person, the way Sheriff is.
“I called out their names again. And then I found them. They were in the back of the barn. Joshua was crying, and Sarah was telling him everything was all right. He stopped when he saw me. And when he turned to look at me, I don’t know… I saw that his pants were unbuttoned. He saw my eyes and turned away, while Sarah just snapped at me.”
“How so?”
“She just got mean-eyed and told me that I didn’t see anything. I lied, and asked her what did she mean I didn’t see anything. Then Joshua looked at her and said something like, there’s nothing to see here. I took a few steps backwards and told them that I was just checking on them and was going to be leaving. And did they need anything? I could make a run to the store. I got out of there and hurried to the road. I didn’t even go get my car because I’d have to pass by the door of the barn.”
Sheriff looks at me, then back at Bernie.
“What is it that you think they were doing?”
“Sex,” she whispers. “That’s what I think was going on. They were having sex.”
I don’t tell her what I know. I just keep my poker face.
“I don’t know what I was thinking, approving those two. I just… I just thought they should be together, brother and sister.”
I pretend to care about her. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t suspect anything wrong. You did a thorough evaluation, right?”
Bernie knows what I’m doing. I’m not always as clever as I think. Or maybe I am? I want her to know that like the rest of Jefferson County law enforcement, I’m onto her. She’s been milking this job for years. Everyone knows it.
She wraps her arms around her body and mimics a shudder.
“I know you have a good heart,” Sheriff says.
She sniffs as though she’s been crying. “I do. I really do.”
“Do you have your phone on you?” I ask her.
She shakes her head.
“Take mine. I want you to take my car and drive where you can get service, a couple miles. Patrol is in the area. Tell them we need some backup here.”
Sheriff nods.
He knows what I know.
Forty
I reach for my gun, but Sheriff motions for me to put it away.
“We don’t want to incite something we can’t handle here,” his voice is quiet, almost a whisper. “We want to bring this to a calm conclusion.”
I say I agree. At the same time, I know what we’re dealing with. I know that Ellie is the master here. I’ve seen her kind more than a time or two. She’s got Joshua wrapped around her little finger. His family is dead because she wanted them gone.
Just like she wanted her mother and father gone.
Gravel on the road crunches. Backup is here.
Sheriff motions to the deputies to stand back, out of direct view.
We make our way to the barn.
The lawn is green, and I can make out footprints where the blades have been crushed. The scene is a Hallmark card at its surface. The house. The workshop. The barn. The orchard where Mrs. Wheaton’s memorial was held. Apples are ready for picking. Goldfinches have started to lose their bright yellow plumage in favor of fall brown and winter gray.
Joshua appears in the doorway of the barn. His shoulder is bleeding, turning his white T-shirt into a Rorschach of blood.
He staggers toward us. His eyes are wild, full of fear. Confusion too.
“She stabbed me,” he says. “She tried to kill me.”
He falls to his knees onto the dust- and straw-strewn ground.
“Where is she?” I ask, bending down and giving him my jacket.
“Gone. She’s gone.”
I press the jacket against his wound.
“Hold this. You’ll be okay,” I say, though I know that is far from the truth. He’ll be in prison for the rest of his life.
Sheriff speaks up. “What happened?”
Joshua looks lost, bereft. I see tears in his eyes. It’s a trick, I think. She’s in charge of everything. When they talk, what they say, Ellie rules it all. She has more power over her lover than Delilah had over Samson. When we find her, she’ll point th
e finger directly at him.
He’s in love enough that he’ll let her.
Sheriff lets me take the ball. He doesn’t owe me that, but he respects me enough to give me my moment.
My words are simple and brimming with what I think he needs to hear. They are aimed at getting the truth.
“Joshua, we know what happened to your family. We know that Ellie isn’t Sarah.”
“That’s a lie. She is.”
“What about your parents, Josh? You know what happened to them. We do too. Your father didn’t kill your mom, did he?”
Sheriff indicates for the backup officers to come forward. He tells the younger of the two to radio for an ambulance.
He looks at me.
“Cuff him. We’ll clear the barn and then work as a team over the property.”
I nod.
“Son, you need to tell us what you know about Ellie’s whereabouts, Sheriff says. “You won’t have much to help you when you go through the process, but this is one chance to make things go a little smoother.”
As if a triple homicide could be smooth.
“Let’s clear the barn,” Sheriff orders. “We’re looking for the girl.”
Joshua’s eyes flutter as I secure the handcuffs. His pupils are filling his iris. He’s going into shock. He needs medical attention. The officer in the car heads toward me. I wave for him to hurry and he yells at me.
“Look out, Detective!”
I see Sheriff lunging in my direction, but it’s too late.
“She’s got a knife!”
Ellie has thrown herself on me like a missile. I’m face down in the dirt and she’s wielding a blade against my neck.
“Make a move and this will go through your throat,” she says, coolly, a tone that suggests she means it. Maybe even had done it before. She’s fishing for the keys to the handcuffs, but they are in my front pocket and I’m flat to the ground. Her hot breath rakes against me, her fingers like a hundred spiders searching my body.
“You don’t want to do this, Ellie,” Sheriff pleads.
Her eyes dart away from me to him.
“You have no idea what I want to do.”
She presses the knife against my throat and speaks to Joshua.