“Unless you see Deputy Florist as the instigator, you have to bring in a new person to link the three cases. I’m not ready to go that way. And I’m not willing to see a good cop as a killer without a strong piece of evidence pointing us in that direction. The Florist family did a total disappearance. They left behind bank accounts, everything they owned, their pets. The case file reads that they were murdered. The facts indicate these are different crimes.”
Ann tapped the board. “Frank Ash was killed by one of his victims or by a family member of one of his victims. That person is likely still in the community. They wouldn’t feel much guilt over what they’d done; they’d more likely feel satisfaction.
“Grace’s uncle was a hunting accident. Whoever did it probably moved away from the community or died an early death of a heart attack. It’s hard to live with accidentally shooting and killing a man, then stay put in the community around his friends for a dozen years. We know now that Kevin Arnett was a monster, but at the time of his death, he was thought to be an upstanding member of the community.
“The Florist family murders were most likely someone who hated the deputy, who seized the opportunity to kill him and his family. It was probably someone linked to him via the job. Or it was a random crime. Maybe a carjacking en route to the campground. Someone needed that truck and camper and took it by force. With either, the person responsible is likely long gone from this area.” Ann laid the marker down. “Different victim sets, different MOs, across three years. We’re better off to work the cases separately. If and when they cross, then we follow that thread.”
Evie accepted Ann’s point. If they were linked crimes, it was going to show up as they pursued them individually. One approach didn’t preclude the other. She needed to dig further into who Scott Florist had arrested over the years he’d been a cop.
“Back to Grace,” Ann said. “Josh looks for the remains of Grace’s parents, for the child Ashley Dayton. I’m going to spend as much time with Grace as I can, will try to convince her to trade off with me so I’m out searching with Josh. But we mostly stay out of Josh’s way and let him work. So while that’s going on, we shift directions and look at the Florist case once again. Where were you on ideas for it, Evie, before this quagmire opened up?”
Evie had to mentally regroup even to follow the question. The Florist case seemed like ages ago, rather than just yesterday. “Umm, let’s see, Gabriel was looking for people in the community violent enough to kill a family of three, to kill a child. I was looking for a trigger for them to have done so. We’ve found a doctor the couple may have been seeing for counseling. We have a meeting with him scheduled for tomorrow.”
“Yeah? That’s great news,” Ann said, pleased. “Stay with that for now. It will be interesting to hear what the doctor has to say. The list Gabriel is putting together sounds like a good candidate pool for the crime.”
“Ann,” Gabriel said, “going back to Grace and her uncle’s land. We need to get forensics to go through the buildings on the property.”
Ann nodded. “I’m thinking later this week, once Grace and Josh have established a routine. We can arrange forensics to go out when Grace will not be there. I don’t want to crowd her.”
“It’s going to take long days over a couple of weeks or more to search that much land, and that’s if the weather cooperates,” Gabriel noted. “Will she accept more of us going out to help?”
“The Thane family, I think, but she doesn’t want this known in the community. She’s not going to be comfortable with deputies out there,” Ann cautioned.
“Ann,” Evie said, “where should Grace stay tonight? There’s plenty of room at the house.”
“I’ll see if she’ll come into town. If she won’t, you and I will go her direction. She’s rented a motor home and is staying at the campground near Josh’s place.” Ann looked around the group. “Anything else we need to talk over?”
“It’s a hard thing, what you brought us today, Ann,” Caleb said. “A hard thing. Not easy on you, not easy for Grace. But we had to know.”
Ann held his gaze, nodded. “I’m sorry it’s here, Caleb.”
“Criminals like this have a way of weaving their way into a community. Let’s fully root this one out. Whatever Grace needs from us, you let us know.”
“I will, Caleb.”
“Ann.” Gabriel waited until she looked his direction. “You and I need to talk later tonight.”
Ann gave a slight smile. “Same place, same time?”
“Works for me.”
Evie saw their unspoken conversation and once more wished she had a something like that. She didn’t have anything like it with Rob at present. Gabriel turned to her and said, “Evie, why don’t you ride with me? We’ll go out to the uncle’s land, meet up with Josh and Grace. She can ride with us back to her camper while Josh comes in to talk with Ann and Dad. Josh will need some time after he hears this.”
“Sure.” Evie went to get her jacket and several water bottles, glad for the reason not to be here any longer. She wasn’t sure she could manage watching Joshua Thane learn the truth about Grace Arnett’s childhood. Some things ripped a person’s heart out. She paused before she left to rest her hand on Ann’s shoulder, share a look in sympathy as well as comfort. Ann would need to be the one to tell Josh. Evie wished for her friend’s sake that the day would soon be over.
Evie didn’t know what to say to Gabriel as he drove out of Carin. She could see he was anywhere but in the present, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. This cut personal and deep with him, and she could practically feel the guilt rolling off him. Not saying anything didn’t suit Evie, but what to say was a mystery. All the Thanes were protective, and Evie was beginning to pick up on just how deep that characteristic ran. She deliberately interrupted his train of thought. “You and Ann. That friendship goes back a lot of years.”
He glanced over at her. “Yes, it does.”
“The two of you seem close—like a brother and sister with lots of shared history.”
Gabriel smiled, put his attention back on the road. “An interesting way to put it. We are very good friends.”
“It’s never been romantic?” Evie kept on, because it forced Gabriel off what this day had been.
He shrugged. “She was the Midwest Homicide Investigator when I met her, working around the clock to solve a homicide in the next county that spilled over this way. A mom and two girls shot to death in their bedrooms. Ann figured out it was a revenge killing, but not the ex-husband, not a boyfriend. They arrested a guy who thought the mother was responsible for the death of his daughter. The mom, her girls, his daughter had gotten pinned down in the middle of a holdup at a mall store. His daughter got killed, they survived. So he killed her and the daughters. You get to know someone when you’re working a case that many hours. She’d sleep in the car between interviews, but otherwise didn’t stop until it was solved.”
Evie tried to picture that intensity. She knew Ann, she had worked cases with her, but this picture was new. “I haven’t seen that side of Ann. She’s mellowed some?”
“Some. Mostly she retired. There was the pace of the MHI job—she’d finish helping with one homicide case, then get called to another. I insisted we talk about something personal over meals just so we wouldn’t have the crime scene images to deal with while we ate. That started the friendship. That and the fact she wasn’t trying to impress me or get my attention—she was just doing her job. She made a serious impression that summer. When she got married, Paul also became a good friend.
“Josh knew her better than me initially. He and his dogs had started with the state’s K-9 group. He’d mention Ann occasionally, what she was working on. I started carving out some time when she was in this area to help her out or I’d track her down at a conference. You can’t touch on a subject and not find Ann has an interesting opinion to offer.”
“How often do you get together?”
“In person? Maybe a couple of times a ye
ar. Either Ann or Paul, or both. It depends on what’s going on. I probably talk to Paul more often.” He paused to point through the windshield. “Up ahead on the right. That’s the Arnett place.”
Evie turned her head. It looked like a typical farm, with neatly planted rows of crops in the surrounding fields, a faded-red barn, in the distance a thick line of trees. The lake inlet would be that direction, she thought. The house wasn’t in view yet. Gabriel turned off the road. The drive in was pitted with deep potholes, and a spreading layer of weeds had pushed up through the crushed-rock surface.
Gabriel parked behind the truck by the gate. They could see Josh and Grace walking on the far side of the overgrown pasture just at the tree line. The house was up ahead on the right, a traditional two-story country home probably built in the ’50s, with a steep roof and wraparound porch. It was desperately in need of paint, but otherwise still standing tall. “Do we wait here or go join them?” Evie asked.
“I think wait here,” Gabriel replied. “We’ll want a look at that house later when Grace is not here, so we have a sense of how much time has decayed what’s inside. Sun-rotted fabrics is hopefully the worst of it, along with resident spiders and mice. If water has been kept at bay, the structure itself should still be in good shape.”
Evie got out of the truck, leaned against it with her arms crossed to ward off the chill of the November day. She tried to imagine growing up on this farm—barn cats, chickens, maybe a goat or two, maybe pigs, certainly cattle. The way the gates were configured, she didn’t see any sign that there had been horses. “Grace would take the bus to school from here?”
Gabriel leaned against the truck beside her. “The school bus came by this area just after seven a.m. She’d ride it to school in the morning, have breakfast there, finish classes, come back on the bus in the afternoon. She’d be here unless her uncle brought her into town for something in the evening. He did that frequently, as I remember—they weren’t that secluded out here. It was part of his charm, and he was well-liked around the community. A social man, having to raise a young girl. More than a few ladies in town were thinking he would marry once he became her guardian, but he never chose to do so. Obvious now . . .” His voice drifted off. He shook his head. “Back then,” he continued, “he was focusing on the farm, raising his niece, and pushing the cops to figure out what had happened to his brother and wife. When Grace got older, come summer she’d ride to town on her bike, hang out at the lake or the library. Her uncle treated her well in my memory of things, and that’s what’s so painful now. If she wanted to be in town, he’d bring her, she’d go shopping with other girls, go to the ice cream shop with friends. People thought he was an okay guy, doing a decent job as a replacement father.”
Evie glanced over at Gabriel, could hear the hard emotion in his voice. “You know as well as I do,” she said quietly, “that many people are excellent liars and can hide well who they are and what they do. You were only a teenager back then. You saw what he wanted you to see. And Carin worked to his advantage. This farm and town were the extent of her world, and he controlled it, all its parameters. By taking away her parents, he made sure he had absolute ownership of that girl’s life—from toddler to teen.”
Gabriel kicked at the dirt, jammed his hands in his pockets. “You sound so calm. I haven’t felt this much rage in decades.”
“I won’t try to touch the emotion of this, it would eat me alive. But I’ll do whatever I can to help Grace get her answers, and maybe find a measure of peace.”
“Paul said you don’t mentally carry a case home with you, that you do that as a gift to yourself.”
“It sounds cold, but yes, he’s right. I won’t let this inside. I’ll be eternally grateful I didn’t endure that kind of childhood, empathize with Grace’s pain, then do my level best not to let it get any further. I can’t do my job if I can’t walk away from it. These cases will always keep coming. I can’t carry the load, so I try very hard not to attempt it.”
“I’m not going to say you’re wrong in that approach. Not today.”
Evie looked over the pastureland, at the line of thick woods, then at the smaller yard around the house. Finding Grace’s parents would close a lot of questions. The obvious hiding place would be out in those woods, buried deep, undisturbed for as long as the man had owned the land. “Do you think her parents are buried here?”
“If the uncle killed them, it makes sense. But he knew this county as well as anyone. He could have buried them, demolished the car in a hundred different places. For her own reasons, Grace must believe it to be here. I’m not inclined to ask her why she thinks that, to ask if the uncle said something one day that got her wondering. Her asking to do the search is enough for me.”
Evie nodded. She tried to make out the features of the two walking across the pasture in their direction. “Regarding Grace, I’ve met her only once, Gabriel. She’s a friend of Ann’s, but she’s not going to know me very well, if at all.”
“Sometimes that’s better, Evie. She’ll see you as just another cop, and that will make it easier to let you help her with this. With me, there are childhood memories to complicate things.”
“She’s going to realize fairly soon that Ann’s told us about her past.”
“I’m sure Ann will let Grace know who’s in the loop,” Gabriel said. “That’s how relationships with friends stay together. It’s going to be healing, in a way, for Grace to be with people who aren’t treating her with kid gloves or keeping her at a distance. That said, Evie, a piece of advice?”
“Sure.”
“Grace has survived by hiding. So that’s where she thinks her security rests. I wouldn’t mention something to her she doesn’t bring up first.”
“That makes sense.” She looked over at him. “Gabriel? An observation of my own. You’re going to do fine with her, all the Thanes will. You care too much not to.”
“Thanks for that.”
They watched Josh and Grace coming toward them. Evie thought she looked stressed, maybe a bit thin, but mostly the woman she remembered. Evie saw Josh take hold of Grace’s hand as they drew near. Grace didn’t pull away, something Evie was thankful to see.
Gabriel went to meet them. “Hello, Grace.”
“Gabriel.” She smiled. “It’s been a long time. I heard from Josh you’re sheriff now. Guess I better behave myself.” They chuckled, and Evie was impressed at the woman’s effort to remain relaxed.
“Taking after Dad.” Gabriel gestured back toward the truck. “You remember meeting Evie Blackwell, a friend of Ann’s?”
“Yes. Hello, Evie.”
Evie smiled as she walked over, held out her hand. “Hello, Grace.”
Gabriel shifted his stance, resting back on his heels, hands tucked into his pockets—clearly trying to find the right words. “Ann’s told us you’re searching for your parents, Grace. We’re going to do everything we can to help you out with that, get you whatever answers are here to find. Ann wants to come walk it with Josh at times, as I will, and my father too, so we can cover as much ground as we can while the weather is decent. It’s going to be taxing for you to be out here every day.”
“I appreciate that, Gabriel. I do. But for some of this, most of it really, I simply need to do this.”
Gabriel nodded and looked to Josh. “You’ve got a plan in mind now that you’ve seen the property?”
“I think the dogs can clear the pastureland and the area around the house rather quickly. We’ll flag whatever the dogs find and leave it to someone else to check out. There will be false-positives, animal bones and the like, given it’s a farm and good hunting land. My focus is to keep the dogs moving.”
“Sounds good,” Gabriel replied, clearly relieved they wouldn’t be stopping to check out every location themselves. “Let me, Dad, and Will do the shovel work. There’s a lot of land to cover here.”
Josh nodded. “That’s my thinking also. We walked back to the lake to get a sense of it. The shoreline has turn
ed into steep bluffs, undercut by the rising water in the spring and fall. So we’re not looking to search the shoreline itself, other than from a boat.
“There are numerous animal trails in the woods. The deer blinds have been set up on the obvious ones, the underbrush cut back so that a vehicle can get through and close to the blinds. I think we’ll check those spots next, let the dogs search the animal trails. After that we’ll start a systematic search—from one point in the pasture straight through the trees to the water, then back to the pasture. Like a checkerboard, moving west to east. We’ll work daylight hours, with a break as often as the dogs need to stop, until we’re done. Probably two or three weeks, depending on the weather and how the dogs handle it as we push through the woods.”
Evie could tell Josh was providing a lot of details, not for their sakes but for Grace, who would do best with more information rather than less.
Josh opened his truck’s tailgate, pulled over a cooler, offered Grace a water bottle and opened one for himself. “I need to run into town, pick up a couple of GPS readers, marking flags, get the topology map for this place enlarged by sections, put together water, jerky, doggie treats, that kind of thing, then pick up the dogs. We’ll do a few hours yet today while the light is still good. See if we can’t clear the area by the house.”
Gabriel nodded. “Grace, how about we give you a lift to the campground while Josh goes into town? Josh can pick you up there after he collects the dogs.”
“That’s a good idea, Grace,” Josh concurred. “You had an early morning. Get yourself a nap while you can. I’ll come your way about three. We won’t stay till dark, but we’ll get a start at least.”
Grace considered the group, nodded. “I’ll take your advice as this unfolds, Josh. Ann says you’ve done more of these searches than anyone around.”
“Today will mostly be training on how to mark the maps, and you’ll get a feel for how the dogs work. Why don’t you pack some snacks for us—whatever’s handy. We’ll get a decent meal once we’re done tonight.”
Traces of Guilt Page 14