by A J Rivers
“Agent Griffin,” a voice calls up from down closer to the water.
I look and see an officer coming toward me.
“Hey, Calvin,” I say.
“Good to see you back in person,” he says.
I nod. “How is everything going?”
“We’ve found quite a few more items. If you want to take a look…”
He gestures toward the beach and I nod again. “Absolutely.” I glance back over my shoulder. “Dean, I’m going down to the lake. Where’s Xavier?” I realize I can’t see him and I look around, searching the shadowy spots between the cabins and under the evidence tents. “He didn’t bring all that equipment with him again, did he?”
“No. He went up to the cabin to say hello. Just in case there are spirits there. Because, as he said, you did not conclusively prove there aren’t.”
“According to him, it’s impossible to prove something doesn’t exist,” I say.
“Exactly,” he nods.
I head down to the lake and find more people. More tarps. More evidence tags. So much came up out of the water that night; it’s hard to imagine so much more still existing beneath the dark surface of the lake. At the same time, the water stretches on far into the distance and the lake is deceptively deep. We know Rodney and Laura Mitchell were killing for years. There’s no telling how much could have sunk to the bottom or floated further out from shore. We’ll do everything possible to find as much of it as we can. We’ll figure out who it belonged to and how it got there.
I spend the next several minutes going from station to station, looking at evidence on the tarps and talking with the investigators. They catch me up on the progress that’s been made in identifying remains brought up from the water and found in the surrounding woods. We know of several victims who haven’t yet been found among the bodies, and there are other partial skeletons we haven’t been able to connect to identities yet.
So we have to keep working. We aren’t done until everybody has a name, and every person we know was lost on this campground is found and brought home.
“What’s this?” I ask, crouching down to pick up what looks like a ring from the closest tarp.
“We just found that today,” Calvin tells me. “We divided the lake up into a grid and have been sifting through the silt trying to find any other remains or belongings. That came up just a couple of hours ago.”
“Was it attached to anything?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “And nothing came up with it.”
I look at the ring, turning it from all angles to examine the unusual insignia in relief on the round front.
“Do you know what it is? What this represents?” I ask. “It looks like an organization or a fraternity. If we can identify what it is, it might help to narrow down the identity of who owned it.”
“DeMolay.”
The voice beside me makes me jump and I whip my head to the side. Ava is beside me, looking over my shoulder at the ring in my hand.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
She looks at me, then points at the ring.
“DeMolay. That ring. It’s from the International Order of DeMolay.”
I continue to stare at her, those words meaning absolutely nothing to me.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“It’s a fraternal group. Almost like a baby version of the Freemasons.”
“Is that actually an accurate assessment of what they are? If not, for the love of God, don’t tell Xavier you said that,” I say.
“Said what?” Xavier asks, coming down the beach toward me. “I said hello to them for you, by the way.”
Now is not the time to get into another discussion about the presence of long-dead campers in and among the cabins, so I move past it. Instead, I show him the ring.
“Oh, the International Order of DeMolay,” he says.
“Does everyone know about this thing but me?” I ask.
“I’m sure not everyone,” Xavier says.
“I didn’t,” Calvin offers.
“See?” Xavier says, gesturing toward him. “He didn’t.”
“Great. But here’s the question. How obscure is this group? Could this ring be linked to a victim?” I ask.
“Maybe,” Xavier says.
“Have you checked for an engraving?” Ava asks.
I hand the ring back to Calvin. “Research the organization. Find out if there are member lists and if you can access them. Look at rings from different years; find out if there are ways to differentiate the year that particular ring was made or given to whoever owned it. That should start narrowing it down.”
Calvin nods and I head back up the beach. Ava and Xavier come quickly behind me. Closer to the cabins, another tent and table are set up to hold the evidence found in the woods. It’s nearly covered with fragments of clothing, tiny pieces of bone, papers, and other miscellaneous objects. These are only what’s been found today or possibly the in last couple of days. It will be recorded and tagged here, then collected and sent to the lab for further investigation.
I talk to the investigator nearby. They’ve found some pieces of cloth that look as if they might belong to one of the boys who went missing a decade ago but who hasn’t been found. They’ve also found items that seem to belong to people of several different ages, but they can’t be absolutely sure to whom they belong, or if they even have anything to do with the cases here. This is a campground, after all. For all we know, teenagers might have sneaked in here at night over the years and left trace evidence.
It just makes our job that much harder.
Xavier and Ava come over and I gesture toward them.
“You probably remember Xavier,” I say. “And this is …”
“Agent Aviva James,” she says, sticking out her hand and shaking the officer’s. “FBI”
“Good to meet you,” he says. He looks back at me. “I have a few more things to process and then I’ll have a more thorough report. Are you going to be around for a while?”
“I’ll be here for a bit longer today. I’m staying for a couple of days before I need to go back to take care of a few things.”
He nods. “Good. I’ll have something for you to review tomorrow.”
Sixteen
As we’re walking away from the evidence table, Ava looks over at Xavier.
“I thought you had already talked to him,” she says. ”You said you told them I said hi.”
“I wasn’t talking about him,” Xavier says. “I was talking about the ghosts.”
I let out a long breath.
“Ghosts?” she asks. “Oh, my gosh. That’s right. You were here doing a paranormal investigation when you uncovered the murders.”
“No,” I clarify. ”I was distinctly not doing a paranormal investigation. I was here because a woman went missing. A real, live woman disappeared moments after appearing on camera on a live stream I was watching. That was why I was here.”
“I was doing a paranormal investigation,” Xavier offers.
I throw my hand up toward him. “There you go.”
I’m headed up toward the cabin where a little girl named Violet Montgomery disappeared, setting off the chain of events that brought me here. And that will never leave Dean’s mind. Now that we know what happened to her, I want to go over the area more carefully. While she didn’t have anything to do with the other deaths, her disappearance and the discovery of her body in a cave in an isolated part of the woods brought attention to this place.
Laura Mitchell was devastated thinking about the small child’s death, a sign that told me she wasn’t the one responsible for it. But Rodney didn’t seem to show as much concern about it. That tells me he was more calculating than his mother. While she never considered their actions wrong, and therefore wouldn’t have tried to think of ways not to get caught, Rodney did.
He might not have fully understood the magnitude of their actions, but I wouldn’t put it past him to be drawn to the cabin where Violet’s family was staying. It’
s possible some of the answers we’re looking for could be connected to this space.
Ava stops a few yards from the cabin and stares at it.
“Wow,” she says.
“What?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “It’s just… this is Cabin Thirteen.”
That makes my skin crawl a little bit, but I don’t show it.
“Yes,” I nod. “It is. One of them, anyway.”
“Exactly,” she says. “What are the chances you would have two cases that would bring you to different places with the same name?”
I immediately look over at Xavier. “That was rhetorical. She does not want you to calculate that.”
He nods and I can almost see the gears that were starting to churn in his head slow and stop.
“It’s so surreal to be here,” she says, looking around. “I know you were an agent for a long time before your first run-in with a Cabin Thirteen, but that was the case that brought my attention to you. That was what really solidified in my mind that this is what I want to do. That I could do it.”
“Weren’t you already in school by then?” I ask.
“Yeah,” I was. “That’s the thing. I started wanting to be in the FBI when I was much younger. It was something I thought about a lot. I really thought it could be an amazing life. You know, when you’re in elementary school and middle school and the teachers are asking you that whole, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’ thing?” she asks. “Everybody is saying things like singer. Actor. Marine biologist.”
“That’s a big one,” I acknowledge.
“Right? I never really understood that. I mean, I get that dolphins are cute, but there’s a big jump between having sparkly ones on your notebook and wanting to study them intensively for your career. And yet, I’m the one they all looked at strangely when I said I wanted to be in the FBI. As if it was a completely ridiculous thing to consider. I can’t tell you how many guys said I couldn’t do that because I’m a girl,” she says.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I commiserate. “But why? Why would you want to do this? Do you have family in law enforcement?”
She goes quiet and turns her back to the cabin to look out toward the lake. “There was a case in my hometown. I was really young, but I remember hearing about it. My parents were watching the news one night and they started talking about this disappearance. It was the first time I ever heard about somebody being missing and I was fascinated. They tried to turn the TV off before I heard much of it, but I was hooked. I watched every news report I could and tried to find the newspaper to read. I had to know what happened.”
“What case was it?” I ask.
“A girl named Bethany DeAngelis. There’s a camp right outside my hometown. Or, there used to be. I guess it’s still there, but it hasn’t operated in years. Camp Pine Trails. When Bethany was just out of high school, she went to spend her last summer there as a camper. Her best friend woke up one morning and Bethany was missing. They found her bathing suit at the edge of the lake, but that was it. They couldn’t find any other trace of her. That sparked my interest in crime. I knew I wanted to find people who did terrible things to other people.”
“I know the case,” I tell her. “Fifteen years later her best friend went back to the camp because someone wanted to do a film adaptation of Bethany’s story.”
“Right,” Ava nods, looking over her shoulder at me and nodding.
Before I can say anything else, I notice Dean coming toward us.
“We should get going if we’re going to meet Allison Garrett on time,” he says.
I glance down at my phone.
“I didn’t realize how long we’ve been here,” I say. “Do you know how to get to where we’re meeting her? It shouldn’t be far from here, right?”
“Actually,” he says. “You might be surprised.”
I’m expecting to walk over to where the girls set up their campsite that night. Instead, Dean ushers me over to the parking lot, and we have to drive almost ten minutes to another area. He parks in a lot next to a bathhouse.
“This must be where Allison was talking about Ashley’s going,” he says.
“But this is nowhere near the campground,” I observe. “Why would her mother warn her not to go to the abandoned cabins if they were staying all the way over here?”
“If she didn’t know where they were actually staying,” Dean says. “Remember, Vivian’s parents weren’t really here. The girls chose their own campsite.”
I’m still thinking about this when I get out of the car. We hear a car door close across the parking lot. Allison Garrett tucks her phone into her back pocket and uses one hand to pull a ponytail holder out of her hair and shake it out before heading over toward us.
“Hi,” I say. “Thanks for meeting us here.”
“Absolutely,” she says, shuddering slightly as she looks around. “I haven’t been back here since then. It’s kind of weird to be back.”
“You haven’t been here at all?” Dean asks.
“I’ve come to the park, but not this area. I just couldn’t face it. After the police brought Vivian and me back so we could show them what happened, I left and didn’t look back. I thought I’d never see it again. Not until Ashley’s found,” Allison says.
“Well, that’s why we’re here,” I say. “To try to find her. Whatever happened to her started here. So it’s where we’re going to start.”
Allison nods and looks over toward the entrance to the parking lot. “Vivian should be here soon. She left work to make sure she made it.”
Almost as if her saying that ushered Vivian in, a car appears on the narrow road leading to the lot and turns in. It slides into the spot directly next to Allison’s, and a girl with spiked black hair and intense makeup climbs out. It’s a stark change from the picture taken of her just a few months ago, but I can still recognize her.
Allison meets her in the middle of the parking lot with a hug. It lingers, and I can see both are struggling with the emotions brought up by coming back here. At the same time, I wish Xavier hadn’t stayed back at Arrow Lake with Ava to give her a tour replicating our movements from the night we were here. I’d be interested to see what he thinks of these two, and what they’re telling me with what they aren’t saying at all.
Seventeen
When the hug ends, Allison leads Vivian over to us.
“This is Dean Steele and Emma Griffin,” she introduces. “They’re the ones looking into Ashley’s disappearance.”
Vivian nods, sniffling back tears. “Thank you. It’s been a long time.”
“It has,” I say. “Which is why she deserves to have her story told. And the two of you hold a really important part of that story. You were with her right before she disappeared.”
“We didn’t see where she went,” Vivian says.
“I know,” I nod. “But you were with her leading up to her disappearance. You might have some insight about it you don’t even realize. Which is why we were hoping you would come out here with us, and kind of walk us through what happened. You already did it with the police, I know. But we aren’t police. We investigate in a different way.”
I don’t explain exactly what that means. The point is to make them trust us, to be willing to give us more information.
“Where do you want to start?” Allison asks.
“Where did you start?” I ask.
They exchange glances.
“Right here,” Vivian says. “This is where we parked.”
“Where you parked?” Dean asks. “None of you was old enough to drive.”
“My dad started to teach me to drive when I was thirteen,” Vivian explains. “By the time I was fifteen, I figured I already had almost two years of experience, so I could manage to drive around a little. My sister worked a lot and was staying with her boyfriend more often than she was home, so her car pretty much just sat behind the house. Mom worked overnight, and I knew she wouldn’t notice the car was missing until she woke
up after getting home from work the next day. So, I took it.”
“Did you tell the police that when they interviewed you?” I ask.
Vivian shakes her head. “No. They didn’t ask.”
“They didn’t ask how you got here?” Dean asks.
She shakes her head again and Allison joins in. “All they cared about was that we were here without parents and Ashley went missing. They saw three teenage girls who lied to go do something they knew their parents wouldn’t let them do, and one of them ended up a statistic.”
It’s a harsh evaluation, but I also know it’s accurate. I’ve seen it happen just that way too many times before. Detectives get an initial impression of what’s happening and won’t budge from it. Especially if a detective has a personal sticking point or a vendetta against a specific type of person or crime. Any of them can get clouded into automatically fitting a situation into that mold based purely on what he or she first absorbs from a situation.
And unfortunately, I can see how that could happen in this story. I’m keeping quiet. I’ll withhold my judgment until I know the truth. Which I have no doubt I haven’t heard yet.
“Show us what you did,” I tell them. “Just walk us through everything you remember from the time you got here until you realized Ashley was missing.”
They venture into the woods and Dean and I follow them. As we wind along an overgrown pass, I notice the girls glancing over at each other every few seconds. There’s something in that look. I can’t tell if it’s making sure the other one is walking in the same direction, or waiting for the other one to say something, so they know what story to tell.
We finally stop at a small, primitive campsite. There are signs that people have stayed here fairly recently, but it’s definitely not one of the more popular locations.
“This is where we set up our tents,” Vivian says.
“Is this the same place you would stay when your parents brought you?” I ask.