The Trail of Ruins

by Shannon Reber

  Why hadn’t Bertie called the cops? She had specifically mentioned the little boy’s grave. How would she know that?

  How was the digger stored? Who had access to the keys? Bertie Suile knew far more than she had let on.

  FIVE

  Since Ian had to get the truck and trailer back to his dad, I drove alone to the office. I kind of wanted to go back to Bertie Suile’s house and question her by myself. I knew the rules, though.

  Erkens trusted my judgment but he didn’t like me investigating alone. The simple fact the woman was old might mean she was in bed already . . . but it might not. And it didn’t take that long to get out there.

  I hit the button on my steering wheel to call Erkens. It clicked straight to voicemail. Huh. Maybe he was hugging it out with Bukowski. That seemed unlikely to me.

  I hit the next contact down and the phone started ringing through the car’s speakers. I kept my eyes fixed on the road, realizing that Quinn’s birthday was in two days. I hadn’t gotten her anything yet. I had no idea what to get her.

  “Hey,” Quinn said cheerfully, sounding truly delighted that I was calling her.

  “You busy?” I asked, hoping she would be my ‘partner in crime’.

  “I am now. Where are you?”

  A slow smile spread across my face. “I can come and pick you up. I was hoping for some backup in asking a witness a few questions.”

  “Well, this sounds exciting. Fill me in.”

  So I told her everything that had happened while I drove to her place. It was nice to talk to someone who understood but was separated from the crazy that was my life. Her life was equally crazy in a very different way.

  I was feeling twitchy as I got to her place. I should have asked more questions that day. I should have found out what other bodies had been taken. Erkens had kept a lot from me. I should have . . . no.

  I had to stop. I was an investigator. Information came through the investigation. It didn’t always pop into my mind at the perfect moment.

  Quinn smiled when she slid into the passenger seat of my car. “Madison, this is the perfect car. It’s SO you,” she said, looking happier than I had seen her so far.

  I patted the steering wheel. “Erkens doesn’t approve of the Flash. He thinks I should have bought something less noticeable.”

  She threw back her head and laughed. “Next time I get a new car, you are in charge of naming it,” she said, her face alight with amusement.

  We chatted easily as we drove, just talking about our days and other random things in our lives. It was interesting to see how alike we were, yet were also nothing alike in most of the fundamental ways. Genetics truly had played a major role in shaping us. Our upbringings had made us unique but the simple fact was, we were both very much like Dad.

  I glanced at Quinn as I turned on the road that wound its way around the cemetery. “How’s it going with getting to know Dad?” I asked, aware that they had spent some time together earlier that week.

  Quinn shot me the widest smile I had seen from her. “It’s amazing. He’s such a good guy,” she bubbled, her eyes dancing.

  A flutter worked its way through me. I had spent my life believing Dad didn’t approve of me. To find that things were so easy between him and Quinn was . . . no. I would not allow myself to be jealous of my sister.

  Dad had apologized to me for the way things had been. I had accepted his apology. I would not ruin Quinn’s burgeoning relationship with him with my own neglected childhood.

  I pushed every dark thought away and focused on the mystery before us. Bertie Suile had information I needed. Quinn and I would talk to her and hopefully convince her to tell us what she really knew.

  I pulled into the driveway of the woman’s house and stopped. A plan. I needed to think through everything she had said to me earlier that day.

  She had implied that Erkens was some kind of creep. She hadn’t let us into her house. She had jumped right to pointing a finger at the caretaker.

  I glanced at Quinn and tipped my head to the side. “I’m thinking this woman is a man-hater but she might just be an everyone-hater. Let’s see what we can do with that.”

  Quinn rubbed her hands together. “I can play with that.” She opened the door and looked back at me before she got out. “This means you’re playing good-cop.”

  I did my best not to allow my giggle to fly free. It was tough. I had made a similar comment to Erkens on the first case we’d worked together. Quinn and I really did have similar ways of thinking.

  I saw the light of a TV through the window, watching for a second as a far smaller figure than Bertie passed in front of it. From what it looked like, Bertie Suile wasn’t alone in the house.

  I glanced at Quinn and gave her a slow nod, amused to see she had her arms folded with a kind of haughty look on her face. She was really getting into her role. My role was far more subdued, so all I had to do was let her run the show.

  I knocked on the door, allowing an impassive look to cross my face. I didn’t know what Bertie might have seen. I knew she had lied to us, though.

  The door squeaked as it was opened and an odd smell, kind of like pickles filled the air. It was so strong, it made my eyes water and my nose burned. More than anything, I wanted to plug my nose. I had to nut up.

  The woman who stood in the doorway was not Bertie. She was one of those women who, even with a look, gave off a grandmotherly aura. It was clear she was very sick.

  Her skin was yellow. Even the whites of her eyes and her nail-beds held that yellow hew. It was clear as day she wouldn’t last much longer.

  She gave us a sweet smile, her head tipped to the side. “May I help you, dears?” she asked, her voice a little croaky.

  I smiled at her. “Yes, ma’am. We were looking for Bertie Suile,” I said, doing my best not to grimace at the smell coming out of the house. It was tough.

  Ian’s grandma had a passionate love of sauerkraut that I remembered distinctly from the few times I’d gone with Emma to their house. When she was making the stuff, their house had smelled not at all dissimilar to Bertie’s. It almost made me smile remembering how Emma and I would do our best to stay as far from the house as we possibly could during those visits.

  The woman gave me a smile that made me cringe inwardly since she wasn’t wearing her teeth. “Oh, how sweet! Bertie doesn’t get too many visitors anymore,” she said, giving us a conspiratorial wink. “I’d say be careful about what you tell her, though. Bertie is a dear but she has what my mother always referred to as the ‘gift of gab’.”

  “Oh, are you two related?” I asked, hoping she’d have the ‘gift of gab’ too.

  She let out a churp of laughter. “Oh, no. It felt like that often enough. Bertie’s mother and mine were the best of friends. We grew up together and remained friends through all our ups and downs.” She looked back over her shoulder and sighed. “Dear Bertie is different now, far harder than she was before.”

  I held out my hand between us. “Can I help you back inside?” I asked even though the idea of getting closer to that smell made me want to puke.

  She gave me another toothless smile. “Oh, no thank you, dear. I’m quite capable,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “Forgive me. I’ve forgotten my manners. I’m Phyllis Beo.”

  “I’m Madison Meyer and this is my sister, Quinn.”

  She looked at both of us and gave an approving nod. “Oh, now aren’t you girls lovely. Your parents must be so proud to have such lovely daughters,” she said, cringing in a way that said clearly she was in pain.

  Quinn glanced at me, taking a small step closer to Phyllis. “Maybe you should go back inside,” she said, her brows drawn together as she examined the woman.

  Phyllis took in a deep gulp of air and shook her head a little. “I’ll be fine, dear,” she said in a far weaker tone, holding onto the door for dear life. “Bertie went off to bed a bit ago. Maybe you girls could come back tomorrow.” She stepped back, her eyes kind of bleary as she mo
ved to close the door.

  “Phyllis?”

  She blinked and leaned a little closer to me, waiting to see what I would say.

  “Did you see what happened in the cemetery last night?”

  She flicked her eyes over my shoulder toward the city of the dead. “No, dear. I didn’t. I’m a sound sleeper,” she said, her eyes drooping. “You girls have a nice evening.” And she closed the door.

  I raised my brows, turning to walk back to the car. I didn’t speak until the doors were closed behind us. “Do you have a little longer to play backup?” I asked Quinn, my eyes still fixed on the house.

  “I do. My schedule at work revolves around when my boss can be there and he’s out of town again.”

  I glanced at her as I pulled out onto the road. “I am working on that. I’m going to get you out of your contract. I swear.”

  She turned in her seat to look at me. “Madison, this isn’t on you. I signed that contract. I chose to work there.” She lifted a finger as I began to speak. “You’re a fighter, a protector. Those are admirable qualities but you aren’t responsible to save the world.”

  “Who else is going to do it?”

  She smiled and lifted her hand like a kid in class. “I can help with that. And every person in your group would help too. You are not the only one.”

  Just to prove her point, the screen on my steering wheel lit up with a text from Ian. I smiled as I read it, my feelings for him making me feel complete for the first time in my life. He was kind of spectacular like that.

  SIX

  Erkens’ report for that day had been thorough. He had marked down the name of the caretaker and his brother, noting the fact that Manny Dozorca had begun taking college courses when he’d gotten out of prison.

  It was an inspiring thing to see a man who seemed to have learned his lesson and was trying to better himself. A single phone call had informed me that Manny spent his evenings at the library, so that was where we headed.

  I glanced at Quinn when I pulled into the parking lot of the library. Maybe she was right. Maybe I did need to learn to lean on my group and to relax about saving her from the psychos she worked for.

  I got my bag out of the backseat of the Flash and tipped my head back to look up at the darkening sky above us. “Having people around who care about me . . . it’s hard to get used to. I mean, Emma’s family did but they were all I had for a long time. The idea that I have a sister is still blowing my mind.”

  Quinn wrapped her arms around me. “You and I don’t know each other that well but I feel the same way about you that I do for my brothers. You are my family. Nothing is going to change that.”

  I smirked as she released me. “That’s because I’ve managed not to show you my inner creeper virus. You’d run away screaming if I did.”

  She threw back her head and laughed. “You met Dawson. Imagine that cocky little piss-ant when he was sixteen and tell me you could ever really compare.”

  I considered that as we started walking, a laugh bubbling out. “You are so right. I don’t even want to imagine how--”

  A car came to a screeching stop in the middle of the road and a guy leaned out the window, his eyes moving over my body in a way that made me feel very uncomfortable. “Hey, sexy. Want to go for a ride?” he shouted, letting out a loud whistle as he made the kind of suggestions that both confused and appalled me.

  Growing up with Emma, I had gotten used to guys stopping to make pervy comments to her. They’d mostly ignored me. I was not happy to have become noticeable.

  Cars backed up behind the guy, all of them honking but he ignored them. He was too focused on what was between his legs and how he believed I could service him to care about anything else.

  Neither of us spoke as we crossed the street and walked into the library. Quinn’s face was as red as mine and her mouth was in an identical hard line to mine. I wanted to go back and break the guy’s nose but that would only have drawn his attention even more.

  I straightened my shoulders and looked around. There weren’t too many people there, so Manny was easy to pick out. I marched over to a table where he sat and plunked myself down into the chair across from him. “I’d like to talk to you,” I told him, folding my arms on the table in front of me.

  He looked up and his eyes narrowed at the sight of me. “I seen you earlier, with the cops,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

  I inclined my head in agreement. “Bertie Suile is indeed a nosey woman and she thinks you’re a horrible person. What are you hiding? Why did you send us to her?”

  He laid his hand on the table and tapped his fingers there. “Woman thinks I got the devil in me.” He drummed his fingers a little more before he spoke. “I need a lawyer or what?”

  “No. I’m not a cop. I’m an investigator.”

  “Investigators gotta be twenty-five.”

  I raised my brows, surprised he knew that fact. “They also have to have three years of experience. I’m getting my experience before my boss retires.”

  “So you just asking questions.”

  I nodded.

  “Ah-kay.” He rubbed at his chin before he went on. “First time I’s mowing out there, old lady comes and asks me a bunch of questions. She don’t like my answers, so she tell Sonny to sack me. I need the job, so I stays out of her way. Old bat follows me everywheres.”

  A bubble of laughter rose inside me but I fought it back. It was a funny image, though was hardly the point. “That doesn’t tell me why you sent us to her. You’d have to know she’d implicate you.”

  He looked at the table. “Cops made me nervous. I’s just trying to get them off me.”

  Okay, there was no way that was the full story. It was clear as day he wasn’t going to say anything else. Instead of badgering him into telling me, I took a business card from my bag and handed it over. “When you feel like telling me the truth, give me a call,” I said and rose, turning to walk away with Quinn.

  “Why you want to know so bad?” he asked, his eyes still fixed on the card.

  I turned back to look at him. “Because there are things out there that can hurt people. All I’m trying to do is help keep people safe. I don’t care about anything other than that.”

  He kept his eyes fixed on the card as he nodded.

  That was it. I had no idea if he would decide to tell me what he knew. All I could do was hope.

  Quinn took my arm and guided me to a stop when we got to the main entrance. “Madison, do you ignore everything that bothers you?” she whispered, folding her arms as she looked at me.

  I folded my own arms and scowled. “I’m not ignoring anything,” I lied, my mind whirring through everything I didn’t want to think about.

  Quinn lifted a finger. “Five minutes ago, you went through one of the worst cases of street harassment I have ever seen and you’re pretending like nothing happened.”

  I threw my hands up. “What am I supposed to do, Quinn? I wanted to break the guy’s nose but pretending to be deaf seemed like a better idea.”

  “The better idea is to teach men to respect women. I have two brothers. Neither of them would ever . . . EVER say anything even remotely close to what that guy said to you. Our parents taught them to think with their heads, not their dangley bits.”

  I rubbed my hand over my brows and let out a slow sigh. “Parents teach their children every day, even if they don’t know it,” I said in a voice close to a whisper, my eyes flicking to the door of the library.

  Quinn laid her hand on my arm and gave it a light squeeze. “It’s so much deeper than that, Madison. If boys are taught by good men that women aren’t just places to stick their seed, things like that wouldn’t happen anymore.”

  I turned and opened the door of the library, stepping out onto the sidewalk. “My best friend was a girl that, even when she was young, guys would stop to stare at her. They made comments like the idiot did a minute ago practically every day. Even when she was little. If there were laws in place that
protected women, that would be one thing. But guys get away with it. They escalate until they don’t even recognize a woman as a person. All they see is something they use to satisfy their needs.”

  She stopped next to me and nudged my arm. “Until you’ve met both my brothers you won’t understand what I mean. They are very different guys who were both taught by my parents to show respect to everyone, no matter their gender, race, or social standing.”

  I shook my head. “I understand that your parents are good people. Not everyone has that. People teach their kids what they were taught. Parents don’t change their kids, though. Their friends do that more.”

  “That’s true,” she said, nudging me with her arm again. “What I’m trying to tell you is that you didn’t deserve to be treated that way.”

  “No one does,” I responded, my eyes fixed on my keys.

  We walked across the street, that time with no perverted comments being spewed at either of us. It was an odd thing to realize how bitter I had just sounded. I wasn’t even sure if it was the dark mood that had swept over me or if I truly believed that males were a hopeless species.

  No. I didn’t believe that. Not at all. Ian. Spencer. Simms. Erkens. They were all good men. Maybe Quinn was more right than I believed.

  And that was when the alert sounded on my phone. Erkens had sent it.

  SEVEN

  When we got back to the cemetery, cops swarmed around like angry bees. It was a disconcerting thing to see so many stressed out faces, one or two of them looking more than slightly green. I did not feel prepared to deal with more.

  A relieved sigh escaped me when I saw Erkens’ truck parked just inside the fence. Ian and Spencer both stood next to it while Erkens and Bukowski spoke to Glenn Holtz. Okay. It looked like answers were about to show up in front of us.