Despite how eager she was to get to the bottom, she waited for her partner. The humidity hung thick, a wet blanket on her skin.
When he finally made it, he was panting, his face an ugly shade of purple that worried her. He had a walkie-talkie clipped to his coat, and she figured they might need to use it if he had a heart attack.
“What the hell possessed you?” she asked him, watching as he caught hold of a jutting root in the earthen wall and put his other hand on his knee, gulping in air. “And going down’s the easy part. Just think how you’ll feel when you have to climb up. We’ll need a rope and a backboard to haul you to the top.”
He muttered something between breaths. She couldn’t decipher what it was, though she had a fair idea.
“Slow and steady, all right? Follow me,” she told him and faced the path again, knowing she couldn’t watch out for him and for herself, too.
She’d only taken a few steps when she heard Hank grunt behind her and felt the weight of him against her back. She lost her footing, the sole of her boot skidding across a slick patch. Her legs came up from beneath her. Arms flailing, she tried to grab hold of something—anything—to keep from falling.
She clutched air.
She went down hard, slapping onto her butt and twisting sideways, shoulder hitting the ground and knocking the wind from her lungs before she began to slide. The mud and gravel were like a moveable beast, propelling her downward over rocks and twigs that scratched and snatched at her clothing and hair.
For a few breathless minutes, she simply flew, unable to stop. Her vision blurred. She heard Hank yelling and another cry as well that could’ve been her own. Then she hit a rock and pitched forward.
She threw up her arms to protect herself and landed face-first in a low pool of freezing-cold murky green.
Jo quickly pulled her head up, sputtering for breath. Dazed and unsteady, she spat the foul taste from her mouth and blinked open her eyes. Debris swam on the water’s surface, a tangle of sticks and leaves. Moisture dripped from her hair, cutting rings into the cloudy pool of green.
Her mind scrambled to focus and filter out the voices she heard from above, drawing closer. She shook her head like a dog, a chill rushing through her body. Then her vision cleared.
She saw the hair first, dark wings undulating on the surface like nut-colored seaweed, then a flash of white.
No.
Something clicked in her brain, twisted in her gut.
She made out a gray pullover, nearly disguised by the tangle of weeds. Brown strands floated away from pale skin, and she could see a wide-open eye, staring at her glassily.
Jenny?
She wanted to shout the name, but couldn’t.
Anger closed up her throat, choking her into silence.
“Jo! Can you stand? Are you hurt?”
Arms reached for her and pulled her up, mud and water sucking at her as Hank drew her hard onto her feet. A fissure of pain shot through her left shoulder, down her leg on the same side, but she was unable to take her eyes off the body.
She knew it was Jenny, without a doubt.
Hank’s voice filled her ears, asking over and over if she was okay.
“It’s her,” she said.
“Christ,” he hissed, realizing what she meant.
He sloshed through the water, trying to find what she saw. He parted floating twigs and leaves with his shins, cursing before ripping the walkie-talkie from his collar and yelling into it, “We’ve got a DB down here in shin-deep water. It looks like our girl.”
Hearing him say it aloud made Jo’s head spin, helplessness and rage coursing through her. She felt furious at the world for its unfairness and at herself for what she couldn’t fix.
She stumbled to drier ground and sank down, arms around her knees, shivering so hard, she thought she’d be sick. She didn’t stop shaking until much later: after the medical examiner had arrived on the scene with more officers and klieg lights that filled the quarry with ultrabright beams; after the crime scene techs had done all they could with the Nissan and waded through the weeds and brush and pool of water on the floor of the crater with the impossible task of finding any trace material in the area where the body had been dumped; after the squawk of walkie-talkies and sirens and shouts had stopped ringing in her ears.
She couldn’t even remember who had put a blanket around her shoulders and removed the shredded gloves from her fingers, cleaning up the cuts and scrapes on her hands and face, plucking twigs and leaves from her hair, and testing her left shoulder to see if she’d dislocated it. Her ribs hurt where her holster had dug into her side. The nylon shell of her jacket had torn at the right-hand pocket, though her mud-caked jeans had survived.
Survived.
Damn.
She knew she’d be fine despite her bumps and bruises. Sore ligaments and aching bones had never killed anyone. Jenny Dielman had not been as lucky. She’d been shot through the right temple at point-blank range with a small-caliber weapon.
They’d found a waterlogged Jennings .22 semiautomatic near where she lay. The serial number had been filed off.
Jo had been taught early on that the evidence told the story and, until it was processed, any theories were just that. But she was sure of this much: a woman was dead. Jenny Dielman was no longer a missing person. She was a statistic, a body headed to the morgue to be toe-tagged. The loose ends of her life would be filed away in a three-ring binder.
Her effects had been bagged and tagged by the crime scene unit, each item carefully logged and destined for the lab. A bracelet-type watch had been present on her left wrist, and a wedding band and diamond solitaire on her ring finger, which tossed out any theories of a robbery.
Did the gun belong to Jenny? Why the filed-off serial number, something they saw mostly with stolen weapons?
It made absolutely zero sense.
From the Nissan, they’d retrieved a brown leather Coach purse complete with matching wallet, a few credit cards, a state license issued to Jennifer Jane Dielman, and twenty dollars cash. Her cell phone was there, too, the battery dead. They had a white Warehouse Club shopping bag filled with several purchases, including an enormous jar of peanut butter, a case of Fancy Feast cat food, and a twelve-pack of Kleenex.
There didn’t appear to be bloodstains anywhere on the gray fabric seats or in the trunk on the carpeting. There was nothing to suggest Jenny Dielman had been shot and killed in her car. Jo had to wonder if Jenny had been forced to drive here. But then how did the perpetrator get away? If he’d hoofed it, he’d had a long, long walk ahead of him. Did an accomplice follow them? Or had Jenny come alone?
And where did that blue scarf fit into this?
Jo had her doubts that Jenny had been anywhere near Lisa Barton’s last night. Something about this whole thing stank to high heaven.
“Hey.”
She looked up at Hank. He watched her with an unblinking squint.
“You okay to go see Patrick Dielman?”
“Sure.” Her voice sounded rough, liked she’d swallowed some of the gravel that she’d ridden on her way down into the pit. “I’m good,” she told him, though she could barely smother her grimace as she pushed off the Ford’s hood.
He eyed her skeptically.
She beat down his stare with a flinty one of her own. “If I said I’m fine, then I’m fine.”
God, he was just like Terry. He never believed her. What did they want from her, a signed note from her doctor?
“I’ve got her watch and wedding ring bagged.” He patted his coat pocket. “The ME found that butterfly tattoo on her hip that you mentioned. Dielman can visit the morgue if he needs more convincing.”
Jo nodded.
According to the medical examiner, the body had been well preserved by temps in the forties, which acted like a refrigerant. The water had done little damage, mostly wrinkling the skin, the same prunelike effect from taking a very long bath. Except for a cut on her tongue and the split skin around the entra
nce wound at her right temple, Jennifer Dielman didn’t have a visible blemish. There were no indications she’d been beaten or forcibly subdued. There were no ligature marks at her wrists, no handprints from bruising, and no signs of blunt-force trauma.
“I have a feeling he’s going to want to see to believe,” she said.
Hank grunted. “I’d need that, too.” He ran a hand over his thinning hair. “But a gunshot to the head isn’t pretty, no matter how it’s inflicted.”
No matter how it’s inflicted.
Jo had headed toward the passenger door and paused to eye him over the car’s roof. “You’re thinking suicide?”
He jiggled the keys. “Aren’t you?”
She struggled to put into words the niggling sense of doubt, the visceral reaction somewhere deep inside that fought the idea that Jenny had killed herself. But she couldn’t tell him that she just didn’t want it to be. “How things look on the surface isn’t always reality.”
“And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
She hugged her arms around herself. “It goes against everything we’ve been taught.”
It was an unwritten rule that women didn’t take their own lives by shooting themselves in the head, and Hank knew it. Though times were changing and methods of violence were evolving, which could be what had him thinking the rules didn’t apply anymore.
“I don’t have the answer any more than you do, Jo.”
Something else came to mind, something that made her question the notion of suicide. “Where’s the locket she supposedly wore every waking hour?” Jo asked. “And where’s her coat? I saw her wearing it in the Warehouse Club video. Techs didn’t find either one.”
“She wasn’t robbed,” Hank said deliberately. “She’s still wearing her rings and her watch, and the rest is in the car—her keys, her purse, even her purchases. Maybe she lost the necklace somewhere. Could still be in that pit, and we just didn’t find it.”
“And her coat?”
Hank sighed. “Looks to me like this was personal. Maybe so personal, it didn’t involve anyone else but the victim.”
No, Jo wanted to argue. That’s not how it went down.
But she didn’t have the evidence to back it up.
She took a deep breath and held it as she turned away to see movement against the mist of gray. A drizzle had begun to fall. Red taillights flickered as vehicles headed out. She heard the slam of doors, the call of voices, and the grind of the lift drawing the Nissan onto the tow.
She got into the Ford and tugged on her seat belt.
Hank started the engine and put the car in gear, though the wheels spun in the muck before they found traction. This time, they were part of a small caravan, an exodus as solemn as a funeral procession.
Suicide.
Is that what happened, Jenny? With the anniversary of Finn’s death so close, did you decide you had nothing left to live for? Did you come out to this godforsaken place to find your peace?
She turned to Hank and started to open her mouth, to insist that it was insane to assume Jenny Dielman would have driven out to oblivion, walked down into a rain-swollen pit, put a gun to her head, and pulled the trigger.
But how could Jo explain that her sense of unease came from a place inside her that he’d never seen, the part of her that had thought more than once about what it would be like to stop living and find the same kind of peace that Jenny had craved?
So instead she clammed up and faced the window.
The haunted eyes in the photograph flashed in her head.
What if Hank were right?
She realized she was gritting her teeth and forced her jaw to relax, though the rest of her was tighter than a tick.
She stared at the landscape, finding it a lonely place. The sky was dim. It was hard to tell what time it was. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn it was dusk and not just a bleak fall day, one that was about to get bleaker.
I tell Sally I need a break, and I step outside, cell phone in hand. My legs wobble as I walk to the concrete bench around the side of the library. No one is there that I can see. It’s private enough for what I need.
I take a few deep breaths before I dial the number and hear the first ring. But then I chicken out. Before the second ring, I hang up, my heart pounding.
You can’t be afraid, I tell myself. Finn’s counting on you. If you don’t do this, who will?
I take a few more deep breaths until I settle down and go back inside.
“Are you all right?” Sally asks.
I wonder if my nerves show in my face. I try hard to smile.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I just had to call the vet about Ernie. He needs to have his teeth cleaned. He’s not going to like it.”
Sally laughs. “Good luck with that.”
I’m still shaking when I sit down at my desk and put my phone back in my purse. How long can I wait until I work up the courage to let the phone ring until the voice says, “Hello?” For me to find the words that I must say?
“Tell me again,” I will ask. “Tell me what happened that night when you let our son die.”
I will listen, and he will lie all over again.
But this time, I won’t believe him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Dielmans’ house on Ella Drive looked pretty much the same as it had the night before, although this time, there were lights in the windows.
The one-story ranch with its yellow trim and neat yard gave a hopeful appearance, despite the drizzle. A shiny BMW sedan was parked on the semicircular drive. Its white surface glowed like polished bone against the gray backdrop.
That was Patrick’s car, Jo knew. It was much newer and fancier than the Nissan that had belonged to Jenny.
“Are you ready?” Hank asked, palming his keys as he looked at her.
“Give me a minute, okay?”
She had a chill she couldn’t shake. Despite the heat from the floor vents, she still hadn’t dried out completely. Her jeans felt clammy against her thighs. She’d done her best to comb her hair and scrape the yellow mud from her shoes and clothes, but it didn’t take more than a cursory glance into the rearview mirror to see she’d been on the losing end of a fight.
Part of her wanted to go home, take a shower, and bury herself beneath the blankets on her bed, forgetting what she’d seen. Her body didn’t hurt near as much as her psyche. She had so hoped to find Jenny Dielman alive.
She huddled inside her insulated jacket and peered through the rain-spattered window at the house, at its stillness.
“Did I ever tell you the wife and I checked out a place in this neighborhood?” Hank remarked, slinging an arm over the back of the seat. He let out a low whistle. “You wouldn’t believe how much some of these babies go for. I mean, what would you expect to pay for fifteen hundred square feet?”
“Two hundred grand.”
“Try three.”
Jo rubbed her arms, sensing stiffness in her left shoulder. “Sounds like a lot of debt to me.”
“It’s called upward mobility.”
“I’ve got a fear of heights.”
He said something about trailer parks and Jerry Springer, but she wasn’t listening. She stared at a Japanese maple no higher than six or seven feet that had lost nearly all of its bright red leaves. Then she looked over at a large bay window in the front of the house. She saw movement at the curtains and a pale face, watching.
A charge went up her spine. “We’ve been made,” she said through chattering teeth.
He leaned forward, looking past her, before the curtains dropped. “Damn, I hate this,” he said and opened his door.
Jo smelled the damp before he slammed the door shut. The car swayed beneath her.
Slowly, she unbuckled her seat belt and let the straps slip away. She took another quick peek at herself in the rearview, hoping she didn’t freak out Dielman with her less-than-pristine appearance. Deciding there wasn’t much she could do about it, she followed her partner to
ward the front door.
As Hank reached out to ring the bell, the door swung inward, and Patrick Dielman stood before them. His yellow button-down shirt hung over a pair of wrinkled gray trousers. He wore dark socks but no shoes. His eyes were red-rimmed, his cheeks unshaven.
He looked a shell of the polished man who’d insisted Jo listen to him yesterday morning. She imagined he’d stayed up all night, pacing, calling Jenny’s cell phone, hoping to hear her voice, lying down on Jenny’s side of the bed, holding her pillow, and breathing in the smell of her.
“We need to speak to you, sir,” Hank finally said, and Jo was glad he broke the silence.
“You found her,” the man stated simply, and she realized he’d sensed on some level that this was coming.
“Can we talk in private, Mr. Dielman?” she said.
Dielman stared past them, his chest rising and falling so quickly, a tiny twitch at his jaw. Was he thinking that if he kept them out, he could change what they would tell him?
God, how Jo wished she were anywhere but here.
“May we come in, sir?” Hank tried again.
“I’m sorry. I’m not myself.” Dielman stepped back to let them enter.
Jo walked into the well-lit foyer, her boots clicking on the marble tiles.
The dining room was to her left, the living room dead ahead. A hallway led off to the right, doubtless to the bedrooms.
“Can I get you anything?” Dielman asked as he closed the door. “Something to drink?”
Jo’s heart sank at the question, at his instinct to play the good host when they were here to give him the worst news of his life.
“No,” Hank answered for them. “We’re fine. Is there somewhere we can sit down?”
Dielman nodded. “This way.”
Jo followed the two men, noting the beige paint and wall-to-wall carpeting that gave no sense of the personality of the couple who’d lived there. She took the steps down into a sunken living room. The oak furniture appeared to be a suite put together by the manufacturer; no crazy, old upholstered pieces or anything resembling antiques. The framed prints hung too high were ones she’d seen so often in retail stores they seemed generic.
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