Night Shift

by Annelise Ryan

  Brenda hands me a flashlight and gets one for herself, too, so we can illuminate the meandering paths well enough to keep us on the trail and avoid tripping over any gravestones. Some of the older ones are half buried in the earth, with just enough sticking up to make wandering off the path hazardous. We spend fifteen minutes slowly exploring the area closest to the gates, our flashlights creating long, creeping shadows as the light tries to eke its way around the large tree trunks and the more upright stones. The big tree where I thought I saw the ghost the other night is about fifty yards in, and I steer us that way with some trepidation, my heart pounding in my chest. I half expect to see an ephemeral wisp of something come looming out at us, but there is nothing. Roscoe wanders about, nose to the ground, weaving a serpentine path among the headstones. At one point he lifts a leg and pees on the side of someone’s headstone, and I admonish him and make a silent apology to whoever is buried there as well as any loved ones who might come to visit.

  Once we have searched the area near the gates, we venture down the hill toward where we found Danny the other day and start searching in and around the trees, even up some of those that have lower-hanging branches and are, therefore, easily climbable. There is no sign of anyone, living or dead, and half an hour later we are back at the top of the hill and venturing out toward the back area of the cemetery, which is bordered by the river that meanders its way through town.

  I become fascinated with the engravings on the headstones, some of them marking entire families buried together in an area, others lone burials. There are a frightening and sad number of young children in this older part of the cemetery, which dates back to the late 1800s. Childhood deaths back then were relatively common, both from disease and injuries, and I wonder at the grief and sorrow that must have permeated families in those times. My grief support group that I run at the hospital has a core group of regulars who attend, but judging from the dates and ages on the headstones, had I been doing something like that back at the turn of the twentieth century, the group would have been huge. Or perhaps not. People might have become inured to the tragedy of death, given how common it was.

  There is no moon to help us navigate our way, but there are fewer trees in the back section, so we make quick work of it and easily determine that Danny isn’t hiding there.

  It takes us a little over an hour to search the entire cemetery, and we come up empty. Brenda has been mostly silent the entire time, and her earlier excitement at the prospect of searching here seems to have abated. As we head back to the main gate, there is a rustle and some movement up ahead on the far side of a huge old oak tree, and for a moment I think we might have finally found Danny. But it turns out to be a deer, who stands frozen in the beam of my flashlight for nearly a full minute—living up to the deer-in-the-headlights cliché. When I finally lower the light toward the ground, it bounds off, leaping over several headstones and heading toward the river. With the fence back there it’s going to be trapped. Its only exit will be through the gate because the fence is six feet high and made of wrought iron with spaces too narrow between the spindles for the deer to fit through. Hopefully, it will eventually find its way out.

  Back in the car, Brenda calls in to the station to let Miranda, the weekend night shift dispatcher, know that we are done with our search and that it didn’t produce anything. Miranda lets us know that Allie has called in twice asking to speak to me but was told I was otherwise occupied.

  “She wouldn’t tell me what it was about,” Miranda says, “but I asked her if her brother had shown up and she said no.”

  I call Allie and get her voice mail, but after I leave a brief message and hang up, she calls me back a few minutes later.

  “Hildy, any chance you can come by my house? Joel and I found something, and I want to show it to you before anyone else sees it.”

  “Is it something related to Danny?”

  “It is,” she says, weariness in her voice.

  I look at Brenda, who nods. “We’ll be there in a few minutes,” I say.

  When we arrive at Allie’s house, the porch light is on to welcome us, though I suppose it might also be on to welcome Danny back home. Allie must have been watching for us because she opens the front door before we have a chance to knock.

  “Please, come in,” she says, and Brenda and I both enter. “I hope you don’t think I’m being a nosy busybody, but I thought I should look at Danny’s computer to see if it might offer up any suggestions as to his whereabouts. His bedroom is upstairs and normally I don’t go in there, but tonight I made an exception.”

  “And you found something on his laptop?” Brenda says.

  Allie shakes her head. “No, it’s gone, just like Danny. His cell phone is here in the house—it’s downstairs in the living room—and I tried to check it for emails and such, but the thing has been wiped clean. There are no messages, no email access... nothing. Even his call history has been wiped. It’s like he restored the phone to the factory settings.” Her brow is creased with worry and her voice is tremulous, as if she’s about to burst into tears.

  Joel comes out of the kitchen and walks down the hall toward us, a grim expression on his face. He drapes what I’m sure is meant to be a reassuring arm over Allie’s shoulders, but this small show of affection is all it takes to make Allie’s fragile wall of strength crumble. Tears well in her eyes and she says, “I’m worried. Everything feels so... so final with him right now. I think he may be doing something stupid.”

  “You think he’s suicidal?”

  She doesn’t answer but the fear on her face says all I need to know.

  “If Danny’s laptop is gone, what is it you wanted to show me?” I ask her.

  “This.” She reaches into her pants pocket and pulls out a folded slip of paper, handing it to me with a trembling hand.

  I take it and carefully unfold it. It’s a plain piece of standard copy paper, the kind used in printers and copiers everywhere. Written on it in block letters in black ink are the words: DO AS YOU ARE TOLD OR YOUR SISTER WILL DIE.

  I hand the paper to Brenda, who takes it gingerly by the edge, and ask Allie, “Where exactly did you find this?”

  “It was on his dresser inside a little box he keeps there that has some cuff links and a ring in it that he wears from time to time. I don’t know what made me look in it. I was just standing in the middle of his bedroom, trying to connect with him somehow, and I thought I would look through his dresser drawers to see if . . . I don’t know what I was hoping to see. I was desperate and grasping at straws.”

  Brenda says, “We can take this note as evidence and see if there are any fingerprints on it. Did both of you handle it?”

  Allie nods, looking regretful. “Sorry,” she says. “If I’d known what it was when I first found it....”

  “It’s okay,” Brenda reassures her. “We can always rule your prints out. It’s not the best source for prints anyway so it may not produce anything. Have you got a paper bag I can put it in, like a lunch sack, or a grocery bag?”

  Joel says, “Of course,” removes his arm from Allie’s shoulders and disappears back into the kitchen. He returns a moment later carrying a folded, lunch-size paper bag and hands it to Brenda.

  She hands the note back to me, instructing me to hold it along the edge the same way she did, though this is shutting the barn door a little too late considering that I unfolded and held the thing just moments ago. Then she unfolds the bag, opens it, and instructs me to drop the note into it. I do so, and she closes the top, folding it over a few times. With that done, she takes a pen from her pocket and writes on the outside upper fold of the bag, putting down the day, the time, and her initials.

  “I don’t think there’s much more we can do here,” she says when she’s done. “Unless you have anything else?”

  Allie shakes her head woefully, one tear sliding down her cheek. Joel affectionately pushes a lock of hair back off her face and says, “Come on, babe. You need to get some rest.” He twines o
ne of his arms around hers and makes as if to steer her toward the stairs, but Allie resists. She wipes a sleeve across her nose, and this gives me an idea.

  “Allie, can you get me a piece of clothing that Danny has worn recently, something that hasn’t been laundered since he wore it?”

  She gives me a puzzled look. So does Brenda.

  “Roscoe is very good at sniffing things out. He helped me solve that college student case by tracking a scent. Maybe we can use him to try to find Danny instead of searching through a cemetery in the dark.”

  “Good idea,” Brenda says.

  Allie sighs and looks up at Joel. “Would you mind running upstairs and grabbing something out of the laundry hamper? I’m not sure I’d know his clothes from yours.”

  “Sure,” Joel says. He gives her a quick kiss on top of her head and then goes upstairs, taking them two at a time.

  Allie looks at me with pleading eyes. “Hildy, that note is proof that whatever Danny may have done, he did it out of love for me, and because he was being blackmailed, right? Won’t that help if they find him?”

  “It might,” I say, though I have no idea if it will.

  “I didn’t want to give it to the federal guys. I don’t trust them like I trust you.”

  Her words are like a stab in my heart. She’s putting so much faith in me and I have no way to help her or Danny much at this point. “Joel is right. You need to get some rest,” I tell her. “Keep your cell phone by you and if we hear anything at all, we’ll let you know.”

  “We need you to do the same,” Brenda says in a cautionary tone. “You won’t be doing your brother any good if you try to hide him or keep him away from us. Okay?”

  Allie squeezes her eyes closed, forcing two more tears down her cheeks. She nods reluctantly, stifling back a sob. “Please... f... find him,” she hiccups.

  Joel returns carrying a white men’s undershirt. “Will this work?” he asks.

  “It should, if we look in the right place.”

  Joel hands me the shirt and on that heartbreaking, parting note, we take our leave. Brenda drives straight back to the police station and we take our bag with the note downstairs to the basement level of the building where the evidence lab is located. No one is on duty down here tonight. Laura Kingston works a lot of night shifts, but she splits her shifts between our office and the medical examiner’s office. As it happens, tonight is one of her nights off.

  “Are you going to call someone in to process that?” I ask Brenda as she seals the bag closed with evidence tape and then enters the bagged note into the logbook.

  “No. It can wait until morning. Let’s take a drive out to the farm and have a chat with the guards out there. I want to make sure they haven’t seen anything suspicious or unusual, make sure Danny didn’t hitch a ride out there somehow. And let’s see if Roscoe can sniff out anything while we’re there.”

  Chapter 24

  Brenda checks in with Devo and Al, the other officer on duty this shift, before we head out to the farm to make sure they don’t need us for anything and to let them know where we’ll be. Though the farm is outside of town, it’s not far beyond the city limits and we can be back within a matter of minutes if need be.

  There is a county sheriff’s car parked at the entrance to the driveway and sitting behind the wheel is a uniformed guy who is sound asleep. He has his car parked in such a way that no other vehicles can get past him to go up the drive thanks to ditches on either side, but that also means we can’t get by him.

  “Great,” Brenda says with a doleful shake of her head. “If Danny did get out here somehow, he could have walked right past this idiot.” She punches the horn, sending out one, long, loud blast. The cop behind the wheel of the other cruiser startles, sitting up fast enough to give himself whiplash. His eyes dart about frantically for a second before seeing us. His posture relaxes then, and he climbs out of his car and walks over to Brenda’s window. I note that his complexion has turned the color of ripe watermelon.

  “Sorry about that,” he says when Brenda lowers her window. “They’ve got us working so much overtime because we’re short and I’m afraid it’s starting to catch up to me.”

  “Have you been parked across the drive like that for a while?” Brenda asks.

  “Since eight this evening. And the guy I relieved was the same way. He said there hadn’t been anyone out here all day.”

  “Is there someone up at the farm keeping an eye out?” Brenda asks. “There is another access road that runs off County D.”

  “I don’t think there’s anyone at the farm itself, but there’s another car posted by the end of that access road, so no one is getting in that way.”

  “We need to take a look at some things relative to our murder investigation,” Brenda says. “Do you mind moving long enough to let us through?”

  “Sure.” He goes back to his cruiser, starts it up, and maneuvers it out onto the road so we can pull into the drive. Brenda drives past him and waves.

  When we reach the part of the drive where it splits off, Brenda stops and looks over at me, eyebrows raised in question.

  “Go left, to the house,” I tell her. We can start there and work our way toward the barn. Based on Danny’s psychopathy and the things he’s been ranting about, if he came here, I think he’d be drawn to the house and the site of the murder more than anything else.”

  Brenda drives toward the house, pulling around by the front door.

  “Is it locked?” I ask.

  “I don’t think so, but I guess we’ll find out.”

  We get out of the car and I go around to the back, raise the hatch, and open Roscoe’s crate. I have Danny’s undershirt in hand, and I push it under his nose and let him sniff it all over for a minute. Then I tell him to go find. He jumps out of the car and wanders around in an ever-widening circle for a minute or so, nose to the ground. Then he takes off around the house toward the back. Brenda and I follow and find him on the back stoop, wagging his tail, looking at the closed door.

  “We can’t let him go in there and traipse through the crime scene,” I say. “But given that he’s followed the scent to here, I think it’s safe to say that Danny was in this house at some point. But then, we kind of knew that already.”

  Brenda says, “Let’s go around to the front and enter the house that way. We should look inside to make sure Danny isn’t there.”

  We do so after I hook Roscoe up to his leash, tell him he’s a good boy, and give him a pat on the head. I put him back in the car for now and then follow Brenda to the front door. She tries the knob and the door opens easily; the tape Bob sliced through earlier in the day hasn’t been replaced. I let Brenda lead the way and secure the area, not because I’m afraid of Danny but because that’s the way I was taught in my brief training and orientation to this new job. She checks the entire first floor, though we don’t go past the crime scene tape across the kitchen entryway. One look tells us no one is in there. When we enter the room that Arthur Fletcher used as his office, I recite for Brenda the events of that morning with the two Fletcher women. This lightens both our moods and gives us a chance to laugh.

  Having cleared the first floor, we do a quick search of the second floor, but find no evidence of Danny. I’m both relieved and disappointed.

  “I don’t know if I want Roscoe sniffing around in that barn basement,” I say. “I heard that all of the plants were removed, but still...”

  Brenda acknowledges my concerns and we decide to simply search the barn and the other outbuildings to make sure Danny isn’t in any of them. This takes us the better part of an hour, particularly on the upper level of the barn with all its hay bales, stalls, farm machinery, and loft.

  By the time we head back down the driveway, I expect to find our sheriff asleep at the wheel again, but apparently embarrassment from being caught the first time and the knowledge that we would be coming back by him again was enough to keep him up and going. He has parked his car on the shoulder just past the
driveway entrance, so we are able to leave without waiting for him to move. Brenda gives him a salute as we go by, but we don’t stop to talk to him.

  As we head back to town, a feeling of foreboding settles over me. “I’m worried that Allie might be right about her brother,” I tell Brenda. “In his current state, I wonder if he might not do something drastic.”

  “Suicide, you mean?”

  I nod. “I’m not sure how else to explain his disappearance.”

  “There is another explanation,” Brenda says, looking over at me with a troubled expression. “Clearly Danny wasn’t working alone out at that farm, and whoever was working with him, whoever was in charge, might be concerned about him talking.”

  This idea sends a chill down my back. “Do the cops have any leads at all about who else was out there at the farm? Any fingerprints they found in that basement?”

  “There were lots of prints collected,” Brenda says. “But the only ones that have been identified for sure are Danny’s and Arthur Fletcher’s. The lack of any others suggests that the others involved are professionals who know what they’re doing. And to them, Danny is going to be a loose end.”

  This angers me. Danny is a vulnerable person as it is, and the idea of someone threatening and blackmailing him into doing things he wouldn’t otherwise do infuriates me. Yet no matter how much of the evidence points to him, I can’t reconcile the idea of Danny as a killer. I don’t have any hard evidence to back this feeling; it’s simply a gut reaction. But over the years I’ve learned to trust my gut.

  I hope Danny is safe somewhere, but I can’t think of anywhere else to look for him. Instead, I fret over his whereabouts for the rest of the shift, which is blissfully quiet.

  “Sunday nights are typically slow,” Brenda says. “People are done with their weekend partying and they’re gearing back up for work on Monday.”

  Brenda’s prediction holds true and the only other call we get for the night is from a lady named Agnes Silver who lives in a ramshackle house on the edge of town. She’s well known to the police because she’s paranoid as all get out and calls them constantly to report imagined interlopers and crimes.