Beneath Winter Sand

by Vickie McKeehan

  Hannah caught her up with the remainder of the backstory just as she’d told Brent the day before.

  Jordan leaned back in her chair. “Something doesn’t add up. How is it the police blamed your father for the shooting when clearly this woman who took the baby is the one responsible and made it look like a murder/suicide.”

  Hannah threw up her hands. “Thank you. I’ve been thinking that same thing for…forever…or at least since I was old enough to grasp the circumstances of how Micah disappeared.”

  Jordan patted her hand. “Girl, you have a huge mystery on your hands. You need to get Brent thinking that same way, make sure you’re both on the same page with this.”

  “Brent surprised me. I got the impression he’s leaning that way. Although he found it interesting enough, that’s one way to go.”

  Jordan’s eyes settled on Hannah in stern fashion. “Oh, honey, please tell me you aren’t thinking of trying to run down leads on your own? That won’t go over well at all with Brent.”

  “But technically, this isn’t his case.”

  “Did he say that? If that’s Micah, it’s his murder investigation.”

  “And if it isn’t…the original kidnapping happened in Stanislaus County, the double murders were there.”

  Jordan shifted in her seat. “All I know is that Brent is like most members of law enforcement. He’s very territorial when it comes to protecting this town. He used to be the county sheriff. No more. Since leaving that job it’s like he has something to prove to everyone. That’s why you better believe he’ll do his best to solve this thing. Trust me on that.”

  Jordan chewed her lip. “You know, when we first heard the news yesterday, Nick and I thought of something that might be relevant. It just so happens I have a ton of photos Scott took of Bradford House. Scott started taking pictures back in high school. He fancied himself a photographer and worked on the yearbook and the high school newspaper. Add to that, in his spare time, he was quite good at capturing things around town in pictures, black and white mostly. You may have noticed upstairs, I had some of his treasured photographs framed and used them as artwork to display around the house. Through the years, he must have taken at least a hundred photos of Bradford House. Nick and I discovered them a couple months back when we went to the attic to get out the Christmas decorations. There was a box of photos sitting out, big as life in the middle of the room as if Scott wanted us to find them. Once we got the tree up, we began sorting through the box and found some stunning photos taken on Bradford grounds, and the surrounding cliffs. I’d planned to give them to Quentin at some point as a housewarming gift. But with the busy holidays I haven’t had the chance.”

  “I’d love to see them.”

  Jordan got up from the table and retrieved a large manila envelope stuffed with pictures, some taken in vivid color, others snapped in black and white. She spread them out so Hannah could peruse through the stacks.

  Hannah went through at least three dozen images and began to pick up on a pattern. “Some of these were obviously taken before the yard was fully landscaped as it appears today. See? There’s a smooth patch of grass where eventually that rock wall will be located. Right here is where they found the skull.” She pointed to the western part of the lawn. “But in these photos there are no rocks visible. None stacked the way Caleb found them yesterday.” She flipped over the back of the picture, hoping for a date, but the reverse side was blank. “When do you suppose these were taken?”

  “No idea. I’m sorry. Scott would know for certain.”

  That wouldn’t help her much unless Scott decided to make an appearance. And soon. “Look, do you mind if I take a few of these with me? Not all, just the ones that show the specific area of the lawn where the forensic team is digging. There’s a difference in how the same plot looked through the years.”

  “No, of course not. I have a feeling Scott wanted us to find them for a reason. Maybe this was it.”

  Later that afternoon after Hannah finished up her work, she went by the nursery. Inside Caleb’s office, she laid out the pictures for him to see.

  “Wow, this is like looking back in time when the old house was in its best shape ever. New. Same can be said of the yard. We have to find out who built that rock wall and when.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that. Are you certain The Plant Habitat wasn’t involved with the yard makeover back then? I mean, you might not know the answer to that since you couldn’t have been more than six or seven at the time. But think about it, if it wasn’t your family’s company, then who was doing that kind of work?”

  Caleb’s face looked stunned. “That’s a great question. And one I should ask Landon. I’ll be right back.”

  “Uh-uh, not without me.”

  They found Landon in the greenhouse, bent over a worktable, clipping the stems on a hybrid orchid that would one day be as easy to grow as a daisy.

  Hannah fanned her face. “It’s so much warmer in here than out there.”

  “We keep it a toasty eighty degrees,” Caleb told her.

  “Look at this,” Landon stated with pride. “I think I’m getting close to coming up with one hardy orchidaceae, resistant to disease, over-watering, and root rot. One that offers a new color, a blend between lavender and purple.”

  Hannah moved closer to get a better look. “That’s the most gorgeous orchid I’ve ever seen.”

  “This is the man in his element,” Caleb said to Hannah. “Landon is the quintessential plant architect. You want to know how to grow grapes, this is the guy to ask.”

  “So you’re much more than ‘the flower guy’,” Hannah teased. “Not sure you know it, but that’s the term Drea lovingly uses to refer to your expertise in all matters of the growing cycle.”

  “’Flower guy’ suits me just fine,” Landon said with a grin. “But I spend equal amounts of time with fruits, vegetables, and herbs as I do with the geraniums and the daffodils she sells. Although I do favor coming up with better tasting apples and easier-to-grow asparagus.”

  “I’m not a big fan of asparagus,” Hannah admitted.

  “Hannah wants to grow grapes,” Caleb announced. “Her father owns a vineyard.”

  “A small one on the outskirts of San Mateo, out in the rolling countryside.”

  “Beautiful place to grow grapes,” Landon replied, wiping the dirt off his hands with a towel. He tossed the rag on the counter and leaned back against the workbench prepared to talk a while. “You guys look like you have something on your mind other than my approach to gardening.”

  “Were you the original landscaper at Bradford House?” Caleb asked. “I mean, did you put in the yard and flower beds for Douglas once he got the house built?”

  Landon rubbed his jaw. “Funny thing about that job. Douglas Bradford pissed me off when he went over to San Sebastian and hired a contractor to do the work instead of keeping things local. Didn’t even bother knocking on my door to see if I could do it.”

  “Why? Did you guys have some kind of falling out?” Hannah piped up.

  “Nope. Not that I knew of anyway. Back then, Doug hadn’t been here long enough for me to squabble with him about much of anything. I’d say he’d been in town less than a year when he started digging up his yard himself, trying to put in a sprinkler system for the St. Augustine grass he planted. Didn’t buy that from me either. So, when it started to die off, I thought he’d come to me for help. But that didn’t happen. Imagine, not even bothering to get an estimate on how I could remedy it for him. Because it wasn’t my problem I didn’t offer to do squat to fix the situation. Within three months, every square foot of that sod had turned brown and died, every inch of yard had to be replaced. This was before he threw his hat in the ring to run for mayor. Needless to say, his attitude ticked me off enough that when he did run, Mr. Bradford did not get my vote.”

  “Show him the pictures, Caleb,” Hannah urged. “Most of them were taken using black and white film but a few are in color and give you a better com
parison of the difference as the years went by.”

  Caleb spread the photos on the workbench, dividing them into two categories. “These were taken at Bradford House before the rock wall was completed. And these show the place after it was built.”

  Landon shook his head. “That rock wall wasn’t put up until at least ten years after Doug moved there. See the difference in the house itself. This color photo shows the paint fading just a tad. Rumor was, that the wall was supposedly built to fix a drainage problem. Doug didn’t want a repeat of his grass getting overwatered and dying out. What little bit of the rock you saw there and carted away yesterday was what was left of a piss-poor attempt at construction. The concrete wasn’t done right to begin with. It didn’t take long for it to crumble away after a few years. What with the salt air around here, it didn’t last more than five, not in totality anyway. You saw what was left of it, nothing more than seven feet in length, if that.”

  “Wait a minute. It just hit me what you’re saying. That wall went up around twenty years or so ago.” Hannah turned to Caleb. “That’s about the right timeframe. That’s how long the initial estimate is that the bones were in the ground. That can’t be a coincidence. It means Douglas is on the hook for that wall going up. You don’t allow such a thing on your property unless it’s your own idea.”

  “And if he had firsthand knowledge constructing the wall, then he had to know what was underneath it.”

  “Good Lord,” Landon said with a frown. “You actually believe Douglas had a hand in killing that baby?”

  “I don’t know,” Hannah admitted. “Who knows if it was Douglas or not? But if the wall went up fast, in a sloppy, hurried fashion, it sounds like whoever dug the line and hauled in all those rocks must have taken advantage of the event. They dug a long trench that wouldn’t give off an air of suspicion, made up a reasonable explanation like repairing a plumbing problem and...”

  “And then plopped a baby’s body down underneath the boulders,” Caleb finished. “A perfect way to hide a sinister act and do it quickly without drawing attention to the burial itself.”

  “But I doubt Douglas dug the ditch himself,” Hannah said as she chewed her lip.

  Landon agreed. “Douglas wasn’t the kind to get his hands dirty. He hired a contractor, a man by the name of Ridge Faulkner, who built that house from the ground up.”

  Caleb started to pace back and forth in front of the windows to think. “But you said Doug started putting in his own sprinkler system. A man who doesn’t like to get his hands dirty doesn’t do that.”

  “I just assumed that’s the moment Douglas found out he was way out of his element. That’s when he hired Joe Wheeler, the landscaper out of San Sebastian. Joe showed up to finish installing the sprinkler system and stayed to build that pergola in the back.”

  “Interesting. Maybe this Faulkner and Wheeler could shed light on what he knows about Bradford,” Caleb suggested. “You don’t hang around on a big job for months at a time without learning something about the client.”

  Landon crossed his arms over his chest. “Ridge could probably add something to the story, but won’t. Faulkner died about five years ago from a spill he took in his kitchen.”

  Hannah’s shoulders slumped. “And it’s for that reason we may never learn how that baby came to be buried there. Everyone’s either dead or disappeared.”

  “Are you sure that’s all you can remember about Bradford putting in the wall?” Caleb wanted to know.

  “If I think of anything else, I’ll write it down. How’s that?”

  “It’ll have to do. What now?” Caleb asked Hannah.

  “I’d like to drive over to Turlock. If you’re planning to help me with this, you need to see where it all began.”

  “Won’t that be too painful for you?”

  She laid her hand on his cheek. “That’s sweet of you to think of my feelings. But it won’t be the first time I’ve gone back there, more like a dozen times at least. For a long time now I’ve been determined to get at the truth and I’ve never been shy about visiting as many times as it took for me to do that.”

  Hannah did the driving as they set out on the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Turlock.

  Overhead, the sky brewed with furious gray clouds that formed to the west. The billowing mass kept building up, looking like it was about to slam into them with heavy rain. A clap of thunder announced the cloudburst right before the downpour began in earnest.

  “I hope Wally checked my windshield wipers,” Hannah declared, flipping on the switch. “I forgot to ask him to do that.”

  “Wally is a thorough mechanic. When he works on a car he gives it the onceover.” But Caleb’s mind kept drifting from the bad weather to something else. His curiosity stoked, he began to ply her with questions. “Why have you gone back to Turlock so many times? It has to be a gut-wrenching experience for you. Why put yourself through that?”

  She blew out a breath. “You’re right about that. I guess I’m hoping to see the house differently each time and hope it sparks something inside me, a memory that might lead to a miracle. I don’t know exactly. What can I say? The house keeps pulling me back.”

  “And has it ever had that effect? Have you ever felt that miracle memory pop up?”

  “Since I’m still trying to find Micah that would be a big, fat no.”

  “You were only six. What kind of a memory could it ignite, except for the one where you walk up and see dozens of police cars out front?”

  Fat drops of rain splattered the windshield in a deluge. It seemed like more black clouds opened up and sent a pounding barrage, battering the SUV. The wind whipped the vehicle onto the shoulder as if it weighed nothing. Hannah held the wheel steady while she slid the defroster to high, and turned up the heat. She took her foot off the gas and reduced her speed down to fifty.

  “At this rate it’ll take us twice as long to make the trip.”

  “That’s okay,” Caleb said. “I’d like to make a suggestion. Why don’t we go to the house and then check into one of the hotels in the area, spend the night? With the weather this stormy, it wouldn’t hurt to get off the road.”

  Without taking her eyes off the traffic, Hannah smiled. “I didn’t bring my toothbrush. Or a bag. Or a change of clothes.”

  He ran a finger down the side of her jaw and along her throat. “A toothbrush is easy enough to pick up. We don’t need a change of clothes since we likely won’t be wearing anything for very long anyway. What do you say?”

  “I say if you can find a hotel room, sure. It’s a go.”

  It took them three hours to make their way to the Turlock city limits sign. Hannah cruised past a string of churches, it seemed like there was a different one on every corner, representing a wide variety of religions—Mormon, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Church of Christ, and mosques.

  “After coming here for so many years, I’ve gone through the town’s history. Twice. It was named after Turlough, a village in County Mayo, Ireland. And it’s more culturally diverse than you might think. It started out with immigrants from Sweden. But with the Central Pacific Railroad expansion, people started pouring in from all over to work the acres and acres of crops in the area. Land was reasonably priced back then. It boomed with all kinds of people, a melting pot, a mixed bag of ethnicity. The town is literally made up of people from all over the world—the Middle East, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Europe. You name a cultural part of the globe and they probably are represented here.”

  She made a right into the older section of town and meandered through tree-lined streets until she got to El Capitan Drive. A left took her past a familiar little house she used to call home.

  When Hannah pulled to a stop she noted the change in appearance since the last time she’d been here. “The house must have another new owner. The outside is blue again. Last time it was an off-white with brown shutters.”

  She took out her phone to snap photos she’d print out later, and stick in the file she kept, making sure to keep
track of the color changes.

  Caleb tried to picture the scene, tried to wrap his mind around how an innocent first-grader would react to happening upon the chaotic scene of a murder/suicide. “You must’ve been so overwhelmed that day.”

  “And scared. Total strangers I’d never met before were about to cart me off to live somewhere else for the rest of my life. I didn’t understand what was happening until late that night. I knew something was very wrong but I didn’t know what. I didn’t know I’d never see Mom or Dad ever again. Six year olds don’t process that kind of thing. Even though that’s the line everyone kept repeating. I couldn’t comprehend any of it. For the next six years or so, the nightmares plagued me and wouldn’t let up.”

  “Why did they eventually stop?”

  “Because I willed them to. I made up my mind I was tired of going back to that day. It didn’t do any good so I decided to change my way of thinking. I made my mind up that the only way to get peace of mind was to find Micah.”

  “Did you ever wonder how that woman knew to find a baby here, at this particular address, in this house, in this neighborhood, in this town, of all the places she could’ve picked, why here?”

  “Are you kidding? A thousand times I’ve wondered that. Look around. What do you see? A simple, ordinary working-class neighborhood. What made the Lambert household so special? Why did we stand out? Was it six-month-old Micah? Did the woman want a baby so badly that she followed my mother home from the grocery store one day to grab him? Why did she have to shoot them? Why didn’t she snatch Micah out of his stroller or something? She could’ve distracted my mother and grabbed him when Mom wasn’t looking. But that’s not what happened. I’ve gone over it in my mind a thousand times. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Because your parents could identify her,” Caleb stated flatly.