by Lisa Jackson
“That should do it. Thanks,” the sheriff said.
“If you’re certain . . .” Pursing her lips, probably trying to find some excuse to stay, Dottie reluctantly made her way back to the switchboard and front desk, her heels clicking down the hallway.
“Okay.” Locklear stood, walked to the cart, and grabbed a bottle of water. “Get what you need, and let’s go over everything we’ve got.”
Lucas didn’t bother, but Maggie poured herself coffee with cream while Winslow snagged a Diet Coke. Tremaine abstained. After picking out a regular Coke, Garcia snapped the tab and returned to his seat.
As Garcia scraped his chair into place, Locklear started in. “I know what we’re doing here is a little unusual. But then we’ve got a unique situation. The reason I’ve called this meeting and that I’m running it is because this is the biggest case that we’ve seen and I’ve briefed myself on it so that I know what’s going on. Just for today, so that we’re all on the same page. However, the detectives, of course, will be running the show. But first things first.” She stared directly at Lucas. “You’re officially off the case. Your family is involved and you’re involved, so after this meeting where we get the ground rules set, see that the work you’ve done to date is complete so that Detective Dobbs can take over with Detective Garcia as her partner. This isn’t a reflection on your work, Dalton. It’s purely to prevent a scandal of someone calling foul because of a perceived conflict of interest.”
She turned her head and skewered Ryan with her uncompromising gaze. “Same with you. I’ve only included you today to get your input, but, like Detective Dalton, Mr. Tremaine, you’re officially off the case as well. I’ve already talked to the DA and the brass. Everyone agrees. Understood?”
Lucas’s back muscles tensed and he bit his tongue with an effort. He wanted to argue that he knew better than anyone what had happened at Camp Horseshoe twenty years earlier, but he didn’t. He was lucky to be allowed to stay in this meeting as it was. So, as Maggie stirred her coffee, he gave a quick nod. “Got it.”
“And you, Counselor?” Locklear again looked hard at Ryan Tremaine. “Have you ‘got it,’ too?”
His eyes flashed and, beneath his goatee, Ryan’s jaw turned to granite. “I’ll talk to the DA.”
“You do that. Now, let’s go over what we’ve got. As I said, I’ve allowed you two in here because you might have some information or can give us some insight into what we’ve got so far, but that’s it.” Turning her attention to the computer screen, she said, “Okay, now that the preliminaries are over, we’ll go over what we’ve got, what we need, and then, later, you two”—she motioned with an index finger to Lucas and his once-upon-a-time stepbrother—“can leave.”
For the next two hours, as the screen showed pictures of the others who’d gone missing, with Maggie refilling her coffee cup, stirring in cream, then chewing on the plastic stir stick, they discussed the case, including the dental records that proved the jawbone belonged to Monica O’Neal and that the rest of the skull was apparently hers.
Winslow, on his second diet soda, explained that some of the other bones located in the sand and driftwood on the beach appeared to be from a female of the approximate same age and size. They could be Monica’s, but only through DNA testing would that information be conclusive. There was always the problem of other bones being discovered and Lucas thought of Elle again.
Once Winslow had talked about the examination of the skeleton, the sheriff told them that the Public Information Officer would handle calls to the station from the press. Deputies had already been sent to Meredith O’Neal’s home. Jeremiah Dalton, too, had been informed that the entire acreage that had once been Camp Horseshoe, along with the area of the beach, cavern, and state park abutting the beach, would be considered potential crime scenes and searched.
“He’s not happy about it,” Locklear admitted, speaking about Lucas’s father. “He’s trying to block our excavating on the beach legally, but it won’t happen.”
“He doesn’t like the negative publicity,” Ryan said. “He’s got a couple of potential buyers. One out of LA and one out of China, and is afraid of the negative publicity.”
Lucas sent the prosecutor a look. It was odd how close he and David had remained to his father, their ex-stepfather, considering the acrimony surrounding Jeremiah’s divorce from their mother. Naomi had fought tooth and nail, hiring the best Portland attorney she could find, to reclaim the acreage associated with the campground, a piece of her history, homesteaded by one of her ancestors who had actually come out by wagon via the Oregon Trail. That bit of history and connection to the land hadn’t been enough to help her reclaim what she considered rightfully hers. In the end Jeremiah’s lawyers had prevailed by showing the court that the property had been deeded to the church by Naomi’s father not long after the wedding. Since Jeremiah was essentially the church, the judge had decided, Naomi had no legal rights to the valuable land. Her own father’s actions couldn’t be reversed.
Naomi had been bitter about the loss, not only of her husband, but her family’s home and, she’d claimed, her heritage.
Still, both David and Ryan remained fairly close to the man who their mother was certain had swindled her out of her inheritance, all in the name of God. In this one case, Lucas was inclined to agree with her.
“The records are pretty old, but it seems like the last person to see her alive, who’s admitting it, was Naomi Dalton.” The sheriff paused to glance at Ryan. “Mrs. Dalton says she saw Monica come out of her cabin, once all the campers were asleep. She was gone for about ten minutes; then Mrs. Dalton said the girl returned and went back inside. Then Mrs. Dalton retired to the cabin that had been assigned to Eleanor Brady. We think Monica waited and then either left her cabin on her own or was forced to, though according to reports there was no sign of any struggle anywhere.
“We also know that she was supposed to meet the rest of the female counselors at the cavern at the base of Cape Horseshoe but never showed up. No one saw her again after that.”
Lucas said, “There’s a new little piece of information that I wasn’t aware of. It could be that Monica O’Neal was pregnant. I just spoke to Bernadette Alsace—”
“Warden,” Maggie interjected, pushing her empty cup aside.
“Yes, Warden now. She claims that Monica confided in her.” He explained about his conversation with Bernadette and saw the sheriff’s face cloud over.
“So this pregnancy?” the sheriff said. “If it was real. A possible motive?”
“Maybe.”
“Anyone else know about it?” she asked. “Like the father?”
“I don’t know for certain, but Bernadette thought so. Monica had said so.”
“Something to check out.” She glanced at Tatum, who took his cue.
“If there was a fetus, it wasn’t discovered with any of the bones we located.” Tatum flipped through several screens on his own laptop and shook his head. “Since we only have a partial skeleton, we can’t confirm or deny. If conception occurred close to the time of death, very early in the first trimester, there would be no sign of calcification, no bones, and, of course, the pelvis wouldn’t have begun to widen. I assume that this would have been her first pregnancy?”
“If it even existed,” the sheriff said. “In all the conversations the department has had with Meredith O’Neal, the victim’s mother, there was no mention of a previous pregnancy or birth.”
“Do we know what the cause of death was?” Maggie asked, and Winslow shook his head.
“Impossible to determine without more tests as there was a lot of degradation of the bones, but there were some nicks to her left radius and ulna, potentially from a knife. Not conclusive yet.”
“Tyler Quade was attacked with a knife,” Dobbs reminded everyone.
Winslow said, “We’ve got that knife in evidence and we’re checking to see if it’s a match.”
Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “That knife was purportedly taken from
the kitchen, right? A butcher knife that, according to the cook, Magda Sokolov, was used in the dinner prep that night, but when she looked for it the next day, it couldn’t be found.”
“It ended up in Tyler Quade’s back,” Lucas said.
Her eyebrows pinched together in thought, Maggie said, “Quade said he was to meet Monica at the old chapel where he was attacked. He claims he didn’t see his attacker, that the guy leaped out from behind a pew, stabbed him, and took off, leaving him to bleed out. He passed out for an indeterminate amount of time and woke up in a pool of his own blood before somehow stumbling outside and running into you.” She looked at Lucas.
“That’s right,” he said. “He was a supercilious jerk.”
The sheriff, who had been screwing the cap back onto her now-empty bottle of water, asked, “Your opinion, Detective, or general knowledge?”
Lucas glanced at Ryan, who nodded curtly and added, “I wasn’t a fan. Quade thought he was God’s gift.”
“Finally,” Locklear said, “something you two finally agree on. Do we know where Quade is now?”
“He lives in Coos Bay,” Maggie said. “Single. Well, actually divorced. Went to college, graduated, and ran some of his family’s sawmills, most of which were sold in the last recession. When his father died, he inherited the last of the mills.” She checked her notes and glanced up. “He’s driving up. Scheduled for an interview tomorrow. Along with the women counselors who came up. And Jeannette Brady again, as well as the Dalton family. Those who didn’t come here will be interviewed by police in their local jurisdiction and if there’s anything interesting or inconsistent with previous statements, we’ll interview them again.”
“Looks like we’re going to be busy.” Locklear tossed her empty water bottle into a bin near the table. “Interviewing the Dalton family would include you two.” She motioned her hand to include both Lucas and Ryan. “You’re both part and parcel to this case. Makes it complicated. As a matter of fact, Counselor,” she said to Ryan, “you claimed that you heard Detective Dalton threaten Dustin Peters.”
What? Lucas felt the muscles in his neck stiffen.
Ryan stared right at Lucas and said, “I saw Lucas beat Dustin to within an inch of his life and then warn him that if he looked at his sister or my mother again, he would kill him. Something about ripping his head off.”
Lucas’s jaw clenched.
“Did anyone else hear the threat?” Locklear asked.
“Dustin Peters and possibly my mother, Naomi Dalton.”
The sheriff’s gaze swung back to Lucas. “Even if I pass this off as a teenager getting into a youthful scuffle, I can’t ignore it, Detective.”
Maggie, maybe to deflect the attention from Lucas, or maybe because she needed to know, brought up the missing prisoner. “No one’s seen Waldo Grimes since he escaped from that transport,” she reminded them all. “But his weapon of choice was a knife. He was doing time for the slaying of his ex-girlfriend and her new lover, both with a kitchen knife.”
“Those were crimes of passion,” the sheriff said slowly.
“But if he were cornered, if Monica had stumbled upon him? He might have reacted the same way,” Maggie argued. “In digging through his records, I discovered that he’d put another acquaintance in the hospital, someone he attacked with a machete when he was in high school. The kid survived. Grimes, who was a juvenile at the time, did some time in juvie and so he has a history.”
“Except he, too, is missing,” Garcia finally said.
“Then maybe we can find him, or Eleanor Brady, or damned Dustin Peters.” Maggie was tense.
“Maybe we will,” Winslow agreed. “The crew is going to go over the whole stretch of beach, metal detectors, dogs, whatever we’ve got. Rolling in before dawn tomorrow. Monica O’Neal might not be the only body hidden in the sand.”
Sheriff Locklear eyed everyone at the table. “Do we have anything else that is pertinent to the case, or cases, before we wrap this up?”
Lucas thought about the scrap of fabric he’d recovered and Caleb Carter’s insistence he’d seen Elle. It was probably nothing, but he decided that the best way to approach this whole case was to bring up all the theories as well as any potential evidence, despite the fact that it might not lead to anything. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the scrap of bloodied fabric in its plastic bag. “I found this down at the spit near Crown Creek, a tip from Caleb Carter, who claimed he’d seen Eleanor Brady down there or her damned ghost.”
“Again,” the sheriff said.
“He was drunk as hell and I drove him home before taking a look. I found this out there. It could have nothing to do with Elle Brady or this case or anything, but I marked the spot and brought it in.” Lucas dropped the bag onto the table. “Just in case.”
Ryan snorted. “Jesus, Dalton, you’re supposed to be a detective, not some idiot who believes in ghost stories and collects . . . what? Bits of trash on the beach because some drunk hallucinated about seeing a damned ghost.” He glared at his ex-stepbrother. “This is a police department not a psychic hotline call center.”
“It could be nothing,” Lucas agreed, managing to hold on to his temper, “but others have seen her.” He wasn’t going to bring Bernadette’s name up, not with the sketchy information she’d given him.
“Yeah, yeah, and some people still believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, Dalton,” Ryan said. “This is a police force for crying out loud!”
“I’ll check it out,” Maggie said, snagging the bag and eyeing the scrap through the clear plastic. “If there’s blood on it, we can type it, check it for DNA.”
Ryan said, “If it’s blood, it’s probably from an animal.”
Maggie sent him a brittle smile. “Well, we’ll find out, then.”
“Just what we need. Another Elle Brady sighting,” Locklear said with a frown.
“By a known drunk. And you followed up the lead,” Ryan said to Lucas, unable to let it go.
Lucas offered the man a lazy smile. “No stone unturned.”
“Yeah, right,” Tremaine said.
Locklear didn’t bother to comment any further, but checked her watch and Lucas noted that it was dark beyond the window. Night had fallen, only a bit of a glow from security lamps appearing in the wide panes.
“Anything else?” Locklear asked.
When no one came up with anything, the sheriff exhaled and said, “Okay, that’s it for now. As Detective Garcia said, the department is going to do some more digging on that stretch of beach between the state park and Camp Horseshoe. For what it’s worth, we’re putting out metal detectors and cadaver dogs, but those are a long shot. There’s new technology available, but any that relies on a change in the foliage of the area won’t work well on the beach.” She sighed. “Twenty years of tides and winter storms and shifting topography. It’s needle in the haystack time. But we’ll have excavation equipment ready to go and an army of deputies with shovels.”
She leaned back in her chair and backtracked a bit. “The women who were counselors at Camp Horseshoe are now in town. They’ll be interviewed by us. As Dobbs said, those who didn’t come to Averille will be interviewed by officers from the jurisdictions in which they reside. I want everyone who was questioned back then to have their statements revisited. Also everyone who worked at that camp, or who delivered to the camp, or was related to the victims. Report back to me.” With that she stood, silently signifying the meeting was over.
CHAPTER 30
Averille, Oregon
Now
Jo-Beth
“Where’s your sister?” Jo-Beth demanded of Annette Alsace, the mouse. Jo-Beth was antsy, wanting to be through with this ordeal. Truth be told, everything about Averille, Oregon, and the camp located a few miles south gave her a bad case of the creeps. She’d even had the feeling she was being followed earlier today, but that was just her nerves stretched to screaming. She sat in the largest chair in the room, the one positioned near the French doors, wher
e if she wanted to, she could observe the deck, visible through thin sheers that fluttered due to the uneven flow of air from an overused and ancient heater.
God, what she wouldn’t do to put all this quickly behind her.
The other ex-counselors were sprinkled throughout the sitting area, crammed together in Jo-Beth’s “suite,” if that’s what you could call the pathetic group of rooms that took up half of the third floor of this for-crap two-bit hotel. Not exactly the Ritz. Then again, what could one expect in a tiny town located so far from the rest of civilization?
“Bernadette’s on her way,” Annette assured her. “She just texted me five minutes ago.”
“Didn’t the two of you come down together?” Reva asked. Dear God, was she sidling over to the minibar again?
Annette said, “She had something she needed to take care of.”
It didn’t take a super sleuth to determine that she was probably hunting down Lucas Dalton, which was just plain wrong. And scary as hell.
Even Reva, already tipsy again, figured it out. One of her dark eyebrows raised, and the smile that curved over her lips was nearly a smirk. That was the problem with her, she was so damned arrogant and transparent about it. Yeah, Reva was willing to do just about anything, and she could lie with the best of them, was an ace of an actress when she wanted to be, but she also loved to play the superiority card, liked to let others know she was on to them with her cat-eating-a-canary smile.
Then there was Reva’s worry about Maggie Dobbs, the cop, about her previous accident. Whatever had gone down with the wreck wasn’t good. Not at all. Which was a problem. Jo-Beth needed Reva to keep the big lie going, but Reva was unreliable and could become another liability.