“If I blow it, my friends will come. We watch out for each other in the park. It’s really, really loud.”
“I bet it is. Did you find anything else in the woods?” Jack said.
“Nope.” Robyn shook her head vigorously. “My whistle’s red.” She held it up. “Like your hat.”
Jack took the cap off. “Would you like my hat?”
“I’ll take it!” Her hand shot up like a little girl who knew the answer in her favorite class. “It matches my whistle.”
“Well, I’m not sure I can give it up.” Jack looked down at the hat in his hands. “What about if I trade you for it?”
Robyn eyed him suspiciously and darted backward. “I don’t have anything to trade.”
“How about that bag? It’s tan and it doesn’t match your whistle.”
“It doesn’t.” She nodded, but not too enthusiastically.
“What about my red hat and ten dollars?” Jack took a ten out of his pocket.
Robyn nodded rapidly. She reached into the handbag and took out a plastic shopping bag.
“Was that plastic bag in the handbag when you found it?” Jack asked.
“No. It’s mine. I didn’t take anything out of the handbag. Those things belong there. Things should stay where they belong.”
Jack put the ten in his baseball cap, set it down on the floor of the pavilion, and stepped back. “I’ll just leave it here.”
With three quick steps, Robyn darted forward, put the handbag on the ground, grabbed the hat, and hurried away. Like a bird with a bit of shiny string, she flitted to the far side of the pavilion, admiring her prize.
“Thank you.” Jack picked up the handbag.
As Jack and Chandler walked away, Chandler looked at Jack. “Isn’t that your dad’s hat?”
“What?” Jack spun around. “Oh, no! No way. Are you sure? I must have put the wrong hat in my gym bag.”
Robyn was walking back and forth in the pavilion, muttering to herself again. Sure enough, Jack could see now that she was wearing his dad’s Special Edition Red Sox cap. It was similar to Jack’s, but Jack could tell the difference, and his dad certainly would.
“I’m an idiot,” Jack grumbled as he turned back around. “That’s his favorite fishing hat. I’m a dead man.”
Chandler patted him on the shoulder. “He’ll get over it. So why did you make that trade anyway?”
Jack held up the handbag. “I think this is Stacy Shaw’s. The missing person flyer said she had a tan handbag with gold swirls.”
Jack opened it and looked inside. He was careful not to touch anything, but by shifting the bag around he was able to see all its contents. There was a glasses case, a set of keys, lip balm, half a package of antacids, a compact, some hair clips and elastics, a hairbrush, hand wipes, two pens, a black case the size of a thick book, a bottle of prenatal vitamins, and two business cards—one for Luisa’s Luxe Hair Studio and one for a fertility clinic.
“You really think it’s hers?” Chandler asked.
“Maybe. It’s quite a coincidence if it isn’t. Especially since there’s a diabetic alert tag on the key ring. Come on.” Jack headed back into the park.
“Where are we going now?”
“The fountain. Then we need to go thirteen benches down.”
13
Thirteen Benches
“Thirteen,” Chandler announced. The bench sat at the edge of the walking path between two hills, at the bottom of a little valley. Jack jogged up the slope behind the bench. At the top, a large grassy field stretched away until it connected with another path in the distance. With no bushes or trees, it was a perfect spot for picnicking or playing Frisbee.
Chandler caught up with Jack, huffing and puffing. “Now what?”
Jack headed back down the slope. “Come on.” He motioned for Chandler to follow. “Robyn found the handbag on the other side.”
Chandler exhaled loudly. “How do you know where she found it?”
“She said she found it when she was peeing in the woods. This side looks like a golf course, so it has to be the other side.”
“You should have asked her to come and point out where she found it.”
“She never would have come with us.” Jack briskly walked past the bench and up the slope on the other side.
“Why are you hustling?” Chandler said.
“Stacy.”
“What? You think she’s here? Her car was found at Ford’s Crossing.”
“And her bag, if this is her bag, was found here. Look, if Stacy left town or something, she would have taken her purse. My dad says a woman never leaves her purse anywhere. Remember Victor’s grandmother? She held on to her handbag like her life depended on it.”
Chandler nodded. “Sure, but you really think Stacy could be out here, alive?”
“Maybe she was trying to get back home and ended up here somehow. She was in an accident and she’s diabetic. Vargas said she could be disoriented. She could be injured or hurt somewhere nearby. It’s a big park, a lot of woods.”
They reached the top of the hill and stopped again. The sun was low in the sky and the shadows stretched long across the ground. The grass here was wild and un-mowed. Scrub undergrowth was mixed with trash. The ground sloped away quickly, but a hundred yards distant, they could see the corner of the pond and cattail reeds at the edge of the marshy area.
To their right, the ground sloped back up a bit and the brush and reeds gave way to maple and pine trees, creating a small stretch of forest.
Chandler pointed to a trail that cut into the woods. “There’s a path over there.”
Jack pointed to a different spot. “See those two small spruce trees? Perfect potty.”
“Gross. I’ll wait here.”
“Germaphobe,” Jack muttered.
Jack walked toward the trees, scanning the ground as he went. The scrub brush at the edge of the grass was full of litter that probably ended up here after being blown by the wind. Plastic bags and discarded fast-food wrappers waved like small flags in the breeze.
Jack checked the area around the two spruces. The spot was shielded from sight, but nothing stood out among the remains of old beer bottles, their jagged bottoms protruding from the ground like punji stakes. He looked back to see where Chandler was, and saw him studying something in the scrub brush.
“Did you find something?” Jack jogged over.
Chandler pointed in the direction of the pond. “I think someone went that way. Look, these branches are broken.”
The stubby pine Chandler pointed to was dead, but brown needles still clung to the branches like ribs on a skeleton. Several of its lower branches were snapped off, and the tall grass in front of the bush had been crushed down in the direction of the pond.
Jack cupped his hands to his mouth. “Stacy!”
Silence was the only reply.
They picked their way through the underbrush toward the pond. The scrubby plants changed to cattails, and then they came upon a two-foot-wide section of crushed and broken reeds. Someone had obviously trampled through.
“I’m getting the heebie-jeebies right about now,” Chandler said.
Jack peered down. The ground was spongy, but not wet. The reeds were dry and snapped off easily in his hand.
“Maybe it was some kids going fishing.”
They kept walking. The trail of crushed reeds ran in a straight line to the pond. A short muddy bank with rocks spotted by dark-brown algae led to the water’s mucky edge. This area, too, was littered with trash. Nearby, the remains of a rusted bike frame were chained to a scrawny maple. The seat, handlebars, and tires had long since been stripped away. At Jack’s feet, the tire from a lawnmower stuck halfway out of the muck. He poked at it with the heel of his sneaker, and a rotten, wet compost stench rose up.
Jack’s lip curled as he looked at the murky water. Lily pads and weeds choked the surface. The handle of an abandoned shopping cart rose out of the water ten feet from the shore.
Discour
aged by the scene and by the dead-end search, Jack said, “If she did come this way, she must have turned back around.”
“I think it had to be a fisherman who made this path,” Chandler said. “It ends right at the bank.”
A swarm of gnats discovered Jack and clustered around his face. He waved them away. “Who would fish in this water?”
Somewhere back the way they’d come, a tree branch snapped. Jack spun around and peered into the woods, and Chandler jumped.
“Stacy?” Jack called out.
The brush and trees moved in the slight breeze. A squirrel darted along a branch and disappeared into the leaves. But something felt wrong. The hairs on the back of Jack’s neck rose.
Chandler started to move, but Jack held up his hand, signaling him to stop.
“What?” Chandler asked.
“Apart from that snapping branch, did you hear something else?”
“Are you trying to freak me out? You don’t need to. I didn’t hear anything besides me wetting my pants.”
Jack couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching them. He looked around, but saw no one.
“I think it was just the— Look!” Chandler pointed.
Jack looked toward the rusted bike frame. Just beyond it, a green trash bag lay open on the ground, with something sticking out. Jack couldn’t see what it was in the fading light. Then the wind blew the plastic, and it fluttered closed. Jack walked toward it. Chandler followed just behind him, matching each step.
When they reached the bag, Jack grabbed a fallen branch and crouched down. The stick felt wet but not rotted. He stuck the branch in the opening of the bag. Slowly he lifted the plastic to see what lay underneath.
A worn brown boot stuck partway out.
“It’s just a boot.” Jack exhaled and stood back up. “Let’s go check that other path. It’s getting dark.”
They had both started back the way they’d come when Chandler suddenly stopped and held his arm against Jack’s chest.
“Don’t tell me you found the other boot?” Jack said.
Chandler didn’t reply. His fingers grabbed the front of Jack’s shirt and tightened involuntarily.
Jack followed Chandler’s gaze to a short, twisted holly tree. As a slight breeze blew down the hill, the strings of a hanging spiderweb reflected the light against the dark green holly leaves.
Except the web wasn’t gray or white. It was golden.
Coils of dread tightened around Jack’s chest. His breath stalled.
It wasn’t a spider’s web.
“Oh, snap. It’s hair.” Chandler turned away in horror.
Jack looked back up the hill. From this angle, it was easy to see the destruction that someone had made along the way. A direct path from the broken branches, past the holly tree—and the golden blond hair—to the pond.
Jack turned back toward the pond and Chandler followed.
The sun poked out from the evening clouds, bringing out the greens in the lily pads. The light danced on the water, but now that Jack was looking for it, he saw one spot, only a few feet from the muddy bank, that sparkled slightly differently from the rest.
Cold sweat ran down his back, pinning his shirt to his skin. His throat tightened. He picked up a fallen branch and moved over to the water’s edge.
“What do you see?” Chandler asked.
Jack heard the question, but his focus was on the water. He squatted down, reached out with the branch as far as he could, and slowly pushed away a couple of lily pads.
Just under the surface lay Stacy Shaw.
“Damn.”
14
My Own Lying Eyes
Jack sat alone at a cold metal table in the police department interrogation room. After driving them to the police station, they had split up Jack and Chandler and now Jack stared blankly at the empty chair across from him.
The stench of the bog had seeped into his clothes and he couldn’t get the odor out of his nostrils no matter how many times he blew his nose. Even his skin seemed different—cold—and he felt hollow inside.
The door to the room swung wide, and Detective Clark stuck his head in. “You okay, Jack?”
Jack wanted to lie and say yes. He knew horrible crime scenes were part of the job of being a policeman. But when he looked up at the old detective, he didn’t say anything. He just cocked his head slightly to the left, his right shoulder rising with it.
“Appalling, isn’t it—death?”
“Yeah.”
“How about something from the soda machine?” Clark gestured for Jack to follow him. “Some sugar will help with the shock.”
“I remember my first DOA,” Clark said as they walked down a back hallway to an alcove with a vending machine. “It was an elderly gentleman. He had died at a ripe old age of natural causes, but it still bothered me for weeks.” He pressed the only button on the soda machine that didn’t have a red light on. He handed Jack a can. “Has this put you off a career in law enforcement?”
The cold liquid felt good on Jack’s dry throat. He stared into the can and thought about Clark’s question, then took another long sip. “If it wasn’t me who found her, it would have been someone else, right? So, no. I’m not rethinking it.”
A uniformed officer peeked his head in. “Detective Clark, got a second?”
“I’ll be right back. If you need to use the men’s room, it’s right there.” Clark pointed at a door down the hallway and stepped away with the officer, leaving Jack alone in the alcove. The soda machine hummed, the air conditioner buzzed, and the overhead lights made a faint clicking to add to the electrical chorus. Jack knew he was in the middle of a police station surrounded by police officers and firepower, but the hallway seemed cavernous. He felt raw and exposed. He pushed his back tight against the wall and closed his eyes.
Jack pictured the golden light on the pond and the horror beneath the water. He could see Stacy there, hovering just beneath the surface—floating like a ghost. Her beautiful blond hair drifted around her angelic face like tendrils.
He closed his eyes and tried to calm his breathing. He willed himself to change the picture in his mind, but somehow he could only see her face. He was used to nightmares—but he wasn’t used to not being able to escape the terror when he was awake.
Jack’s eyes flashed open. Hanging on the wall directly across from him was a missing person poster for Stacy Shaw, her eyes bright and so full of life.
He felt sick.
A door opened down the hallway, and a woman’s voice said, “Detective Vargas?”
“Superintendent Finney, come on in.”
They lowered their voices, but because of the echo in the narrow corridor, Jack could still clearly hear them.
“I have the ME’s report,” the superintendent said. “Manual strangulation. He couldn’t give us an exact time, but he puts preliminary time of death between seven and eleven Thursday night. He also confirmed she was pregnant, eleven weeks along.”
Jack had feared that would be the case because of the prenatal vitamins in Stacy’s purse.
“Any evidence of sexual assault?” Vargas asked.
“Inconclusive.”
“Well, the time of death fits with what we know. She worked late that night. Her manager”—papers shuffled—“Leland Chambers said he last saw her a little after seven, and the custodian saw her about forty-five minutes after that. Another employee, Betty Robinson, spoke with Stacy when she left the building at quarter till eight. Her husband, Michael, called her from his hotel in Schenectady, New York, and spoke to her at seven fifty-two p.m. He called again at nine, but got no answer. Her phone was on the same cell tower for both calls.” More papers shuffled. “Not a surprise. The Morse Hill cell tower covers both her work and Ford’s Crossing, where her car was found.”
“Her phone was found in the car?” Finney asked.
“On the front seat. Keys were still in the ignition.”
“When did the state trooper find the car?”
/> “Ten fifteen.”
“So she was killed sometime between eight and ten.”
“Yes. Small window.”
“If she was attacked and killed in the park,” the superintendent said, “why would her car be a mile away?”
Vargas coughed. “We don’t know. Maybe the killer took her car for a joy ride.”
“Have you pulled all the video surveillance cameras between the two locations?”
“We started pulling them when she went missing. So far there’s nothing.” Vargas let out a long breath. “But we did get a hit on Jay Martin’s sneakers. The blood on the edge of the sole—it’s Stacy’s. The blood samples found on the rocks at the top of the hill are Stacy’s as well. He must have dragged her across the rocks. She had a deep laceration on her heel.”
“Well, that puts a bow on it. Nice work.” A chair slid back.
“Thanks. I just wish it had ended differently,” Vargas said. Another chair scraped against the floor. “Well, I’ve got to go interview those two guys who found the body.”
“Keep me posted.”
A door clicked closed, and Jack heard the superintendent’s heels move down the hallway in the opposite direction.
He stared at Stacy’s picture on the wall. They think it’s Jay. They’re pretty certain of it. But it wasn’t. Someone killed you, but not him.
Stacy’s eyes seemed to meet his, and more than anything, he wished he could ask her one question. “Do you know who killed you?”
The stoic police officer standing at the interrogation room door moved to the side when Jack entered, and Detective Vargas smiled. Vargas may have been wearing a neatly pressed business suit with highly polished shoes, but he still had the bearing of a soldier. He strode over to the other side of the table, across from Jack, and pulled a chair back, but didn’t sit down. Instead, he placed an evidence bag with the tan and gold handbag on the table.
“So you’re Jack Stratton?” His hard, dark-brown eyes studied Jack’s face.
Jack nodded.
“Well, Jack, I need to ask you a few questions.” His tone was much harsher than it had been with the superintendent.
Detective Jack Stratton Box Set Page 61