Natalie stopped in front of her car. “Okay, I get the picture,” she said. In truth, she was feeling the same pressure as Sheriff Dressler. Burning Lake didn’t want a dead body on Halloween, and if she could call it an accident, the chief would be happy.
“Anyway,” he said with a smile, “I hope I can count on your discretion.”
Natalie stiffened. She hated backroom dealing. On the matter of corruption, her father used to quote Nietzsche—Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. “Are you suggesting I lie about my findings?”
“No. Not at all.” His chapped lips cracked along the lines of his smile. “I’m asking you to give me a heads-up so that I can prepare for whatever shit hits the fan.”
“Okay.” She hoped she was reading him right. “Because I’m not bending the truth for anyone.”
“I didn’t think you would,” he said with a wry smile. “Look, you can trust me, Detective. I’m highly motivated to get to the heart of the matter. I’m not like my predecessor. Not even close. Now that that’s settled … what’s your next objective?”
She took out her keys. “I need to talk to her co-workers at the library.”
He sighed. “Tell you what. I’ll interview them myself and let you know what I find out. How’s that sound?” When she hesitated, he added, “Like I said, Chaste Falls isn’t your jurisdiction, and I’m assuming that since the investigation is in the early stages, it wouldn’t be prudent to call it a homicide or a suicide yet, and that means getting a subpoena will surely take a while. So here’s what I’ll do. I’ll talk to any witnesses you want, and I’ll send you my reports. How’s that sound?”
“It sounds like I have no choice.”
“Oh, you have a choice. But your way might take a lot longer.”
“Then I guess I should thank you, Sheriff.” She opened the door and got in.
“Not a problem.”
“Morgan’s ex-boyfriend has no alibi for last night after nine o’clock. His name is Josh Mendoza. Here’s a list of names of the people he claims he was with yesterday.”
He took the slip of paper. “Great. I’ll follow up.”
She rolled up her window, but Sheriff Dressler wasn’t finished yet. He tapped on the glass, and she rolled it back down.
“I’ve been meaning to mention how impressed I was with your work, Detective. I read about the Crow Killer case in that New York Times article. As fate would have it, I’ve got a couple of missing persons I’d like you to take a look at.”
“Call my boss, Lieutenant Pittman. Go through proper channels.”
“I did go through proper channels. I sent copies of those files to your chief of police months ago, and I never heard back. You’re still in charge of the Missing Nine, aren’t you?”
“All the detectives in the Criminal Investigations Unit are working on it, along with the Department of Wetlands and Woodlands,” Natalie said. “We’re still pulling together the pieces.” They had to verify every case and confirm that Samuel Hawke had been involved with each homicide based on solid evidence—a tough thing to do when not all of the bodies had been recovered yet. The first seven victims were found buried on Samuel’s property, but the rest were still missing, so they’d extended their range to the woods and surrounding property, along with areas of the state park that had been under Hawke’s patrol. Once the other bodies were recovered, the local jurisdictions where the bodies were found would take over in coordination with the BLPD. Meanwhile, they were swamped with paperwork, since police departments as far away as Oklahoma kept sending in copies of missing persons files—men and women who’d vanished while visiting the Adirondacks.
“We’re admittedly backlogged,” she confessed.
“One of my missing cases was a transient, but the other was a young woman, and I think this will interest you. She was a violinist,” the sheriff explained. “She went to the conservatory, and she disappeared from Chaste Falls about six months ago. I don’t know if you’ve heard about Lily Kingsley.”
“I read about it in the papers,” she said, vaguely recalling the case. “I didn’t know she played the violin. The CIU probably added it to the stack of possible Crow Killer victims at the time.”
“According to family and friends, Lily Kingsley was a free spirit who wasn’t afraid to hitchhike. She was last seen leaving a bar on the outskirts of Chaste Falls and getting into a long-haul truck shortly after performing the spring concert at the conservatory. Lily’s parents offered a generous reward for any information leading to her safe return, but no kidnapping demands were ever made, and no witnesses have come forward. The body’s never been found.”
“I’ll ask Lieutenant Pittman to follow up on those files you sent,” she promised.
“Better yet, I’ll make a deal with you,” he said, leaning against her car door. “If you’ll personally take a look at those two case files for me, I’ll interview all the people in town who knew Morgan, and I’ll send you my reports ASAP. Save you plenty of legwork.”
“Are you suggesting a quid pro quo?”
“I wouldn’t call it that. More like cooperation between jurisdictions.”
Looking at him now, Natalie decided he was a straight shooter. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll get my boss to approve it and let you know by the end of the day.”
He took a step back and dusted off his hands. “You know, when you look closely at some of the old buildings in Chaste Falls, you can see fossils in the limestone. For instance, the Smith Tower is made up of granite blocks that formed when the mountains first erupted. They’re more than three hundred million years old, isn’t that amazing? You can still see the melted iron and silica in the speckled granite.”
She smiled. It was an interesting observation, but she wondered what his point was.
“We stand on the shoulders of giants, Detective. We live off the labor and struggle of our ancestors, and we don’t even care. We think granite is granite, and it’s always been granite … when it was once mud, thick and teeming with life. We ignore the old wisdom when we shouldn’t.”
“And what’s the old wisdom I’m ignoring?” she asked.
“You? No, young lady. I’m afraid you don’t miss a beat.” He tipped his hat. “Have a nice day.”
It wasn’t until she’d crossed the town line on her way back to Burning Lake that the thought returned to her—whatever happened to Morgan’s violin?
16
As she drove back to Burning Lake, Natalie let the anger pass, a slow-burning disgust that simmered and bubbled like a cauldron of frog’s toe and newt’s eye. Double, double toil and trouble. Bella used to complain that people didn’t actually see her unless she was playing her violin; that playing the violin was the only way she knew how to get people to pay attention, especially her father. Corbin Striver never really “heard” his daughter unless she was practicing. Bella’s violin was her voice.
Mr. Striver was gone now, having passed away six years ago, leaving Bella no one to rebel against and nobody to come home to. Corbin Striver had once been a rising star himself at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but after failing at that, he owned a music shop in downtown Burning Lake and lived vicariously through his only child. Being a typical stage father, he forced Bella to perform at venues and pushed her to succeed. All that pressure only made her resent him more—but not the music. Never the music. Bella loved her violin so much she sometimes jokingly covered it with kisses. Her disappearance left a hole in Natalie’s life, one that she hadn’t managed to fill. All these years later, the mystery still didn’t sit right with her. And Morgan Chambers’s death was stirring things up.
Natalie swung her Honda into the parking lot behind the police station, eased into her spot, and got out. Despite the brilliance of the afternoon sky, the day felt grim. She plucked a few strands of hair that’d been tickling her face and tucked them behind her ears, then went inside, collected her mail, and took an elevator to the third floor, where she
found Luke standing in the hallway next to the directory.
“Coming or going?” she asked, holding the door open for him.
He cupped his hand over his phone and said, “No, thanks. Hold on a second.”
“No?” She stepped out of the elevator.
He was busy working his iPhone, ink-stained fingers dancing over the buttons, texting and taking phone calls, talking in staccato bursts. “Yeah? Okay. Go ahead with that.” Finally he pocketed his phone and looked at her. “You’re back. How did it go?”
“Long story.”
“Lieutenant?” All of a sudden, they heard footsteps tumbling toward them, and Lenny Labruzzo came barreling around the corner with a frazzled look. “You need to come see this, Lieutenant. You, too, Natalie.”
They followed him down the hallway into the unit, where the guys were clustered around Augie’s desk. “Surprise!” they all shouted. They had a cake and everything. They started singing “Happy Birthday” in off-key unison.
“Oh jeez,” Luke said, dumbstruck. Embarrassed.
Natalie was mortified. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten Luke’s birthday. She never forgot—it was too easy to remember. The day after Halloween. November 1.
Her face flushed as she joined in the chorus. A long time ago, for her sweet sixteen, Luke had given her a dozen red roses, and it thrilled her adolescent heart. Ever since then, they’d remembered each other’s birthdays, buying joke gifts or the world’s stupidest birthday cards. She had the best excuse in the world today, but like Joey used to say … people won’t remember what you did or said, they’ll only remember how you made them feel.
Now Natalie scanned the room. There was Aimee Dreyer, the middle-aged department secretary, and detectives Lenny Labruzzo, Augie Vickers, Brandon Buckner, Peter Murphy, Jacob Smith, and Mike Anderson, along with Boomer Prutzman from downstairs, officers Bill Keegan and Troy Goodson, Dennis the dispatcher, and a dozen other familiar faces.
“Quick, L.T. Blow out the candles and make a wish,” Lenny egged him on.
Luke blew out the candles on his birthday cake and thanked everyone.
“What did you wish for?”
“Can’t tell you that.” Luke smirked.
“Hey, Lieu,” Augie said. “Forty’s not old, if you’re a tree.”
“I’m thirty-nine,” Luke corrected him.
“Oh my gosh,” Aimee said, drawing her hand to her mouth. “They told me you were forty, so I put forty candles on the cake.”
“His wish won’t count then,” Jacob said with a grin.
“You know you’re getting older when you stop searching for the meaning of life and start searching for your car keys,” Lenny joked, and everybody laughed.
Luke was grinning ear to ear, but his eyes were distant. Natalie knew that look. He hated being the center of attention almost as much as she did. Now Lenny opened his desk drawer, took out a gift-wrapped box, and said, “Something for the birthday boy.”
Luke ripped off the bow, tore off the wrapping paper, and opened the box. Inside was a pair of blue boxers with a pattern of handcuffs on it. “Oh fuck you, guys,” he said, and everyone laughed again.
“Okay. Here’s the real gift.” Lenny handed him a second box.
Luke tore off the wrapping. Inside was a coffee mug shaped like a donut. “Now that’s more like it,” he said with a relaxed smile.
“You know you’re getting older when happy hour means a nap,” Augie said.
“Can I file for harassment now?” Luke joked, tossing the boxers in the trash.
“Hey, gimme.” Jacob fished the rejected gift out of the wastebasket, and he and Mike pretended to fight over them.
Then Aimee carved up the cake and handed out slices on flimsy paper napkins. People wished Luke a happy birthday before heading back to their desks.
“I can’t believe I forgot your birthday,” Natalie told him miserably.
He gave her a don’t-worry-about-it shrug. “You’ve had a busy day.”
She knew from experience that when you disappointed someone, you’d only make things worse by dwelling on it, so she let it go.
Lenny approached them, licking the blue icing off his fingers. “Natalie, when you get a chance, we found something on one of the surveillance tapes. The Lieu’s already seen it. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be downstairs.” He headed out the door.
“What did they find?” she asked Luke.
“Go take a look. Then come back to my office for a debrief.” He took his cake with him.
17
Lenny did his most important work down in the department’s crime scene lab, which was situated across from the property room in the basement and didn’t have any natural light. The lab was a large open space with plenty of workbenches and an impressive amount of state-of-the-art equipment, including a drying cabinet and a superglue fuming chamber with a fume hood. A grid of fluorescent lighting on the ceiling made everything look flat and cold. She found Lenny seated at his corner workbench where he wrote his reports. The workbench was crammed with computer equipment and half a dozen video monitors.
“So what’ve you got?” she asked, hoping for a breakthrough.
Lenny finished his cake, rumpled up the napkin, and tossed it in the trash. Then he scooped a pile of paperwork off the chair beside him and said, “Have a seat, Nat.”
She watched while he typed in a command and pointed at a nearby screen. “Check this out. We pulled video from the liquor store across the way—you can see the mouth of the alley at an angle through the plate glass. At eleven forty-three P.M., a woman dressed as Wonder Woman heads east along the sidewalk. Here. At eleven forty-four she enters the alley alone. As you can see, she looks inebriated. Impaired motor skills. Swaying a little. Stumbling. Once she enters the alley, she never comes out. I’ve fast-forwarded the tape for the subsequent two hours, but she never exits the alley.”
“Back up a minute,” Natalie said, and he rewound the tape and hit play.
In the grainy security footage, the woman dressed as Wonder Woman seemed visibly distraught. She kept glancing nervously over her shoulder, as if someone was following her.
“Shortly before she goes into the alley, she panics and pushes her way through a group of people,” Natalie observed. “See there?”
Lenny nodded. “Right. As if someone’s chasing her. But nobody follows her into the alley. There’s nobody pursuing her, as far as this tape goes. I had a couple of officers down here looking at the tapes with me. We checked two hours prior to the time stamp, as well as two hours after the time stamp,” he explained. “That’s a window of four hours. Now, we spotted maybe a dozen people going into the alley before she does, but they all come out again well before the time stamp. For example, there’s a young couple that stumbles into the alley two hours prior to Wonder Woman, but then they leave the alley fifteen minutes later. And then, an employee dumps his trash at nine fifty-five, but he comes out right away. Doing his job. A drunk stumbles in around ten oh-three, a couple of teenagers go in there to get high, but they’re all accounted for—meaning they all exited the alley well before eleven forty-four. Then afterwards, between midnight and two A.M., you have sixteen employees who are throwing away trash. But every single one of them comes back out within a minute or two of going in, and we’ve identified and interviewed all of them. They didn’t see or hear anything unusual. Nobody in the alley, nothing unusual, no cries for help. They simply tossed their trash and went back to their jobs. We’re still reviewing the other surveillance tapes we collected today, and we’ve gotten to widen our window with this one, but the guys are getting fatigued, so I’ve put in a request for more volunteers.”
“Just to be clear,” Natalie said, “you checked two hours prior to eleven forty-four P.M. and then two hours afterwards?”
“Yeah, basically nobody followed her in who hasn’t been accounted for. And for at least two hours prior, there was no one lying in wait for her. We’re going to keep looking, of course, but I need f
resh pairs of eyeballs. Keegan’s coming down shortly to review this tape farther back, and Petrowski will check it out between two and four A.M. It’s always possible an offender was lying in wait, hiding in that alley for longer than two hours, waiting for some random person to attack,” Lenny explained. “But I doubt it. And we haven’t seen any proof of that so far. But still, just to be thorough, our goal is to go all the way back twenty-four hours prior to the incident and twenty-four hours after the incident, just to make sure our vic wasn’t ambushed. But right now, it’s looking as if she walked into that alley alone, and what happens next we don’t know.”
“Good job, Lenny. I’d like a copy of this segment of the tape.”
“Sure thing. Hold on.” He took out his phone and sent her the attachment. “Don’t keep the lieu waiting.”
She went upstairs to the third floor and knocked on Luke’s door.
“Come in,” he said. He was on the phone.
She took a seat in a wooden guest chair and studied his face, his inscrutable male feelings locked deep inside. His hair was the color of dark-stained wood, and his reading glasses made him look studious and solemn. There was a prowling inquisitiveness about him—an innate skepticism. He seemed forever poised to question whatever anyone had to say, one eyebrow arched.
Luke didn’t have a lot of personal touches in his office—there was a worn catcher’s mitt on his desk, a rubber band ball, Skye’s watercolors taped to the wall, and a framed photograph of himself and his ex-wife from many summers ago when she was pregnant with Skye. They looked madly in love back then—you could see it in their eyes. Natalie felt an irrational twinge of jealousy. She wanted to be that in love.
The Wicked Hour Page 10