The Last Sister

by Elliot, Kendra

“Why did the killer do it?”

  “Who knows? Chet Carlson was his name.”

  A chill raced through Zander’s nerves.

  “But they had the evidence to convict,” Vina said. “We’re all positive it was him.”

  “Did you know the man who was murdered this morning?”

  “I knew who Sean was. I know he taught at the high school and that his wife worked at the restaurant. Can’t say I ever had a conversation with him.”

  “Any idea why someone would want to hurt either of them?”

  “Only the obvious. He’s black. And he married a white woman,” she stated matter-of-factly.

  Zander couldn’t speak.

  Her gaze softened. “Shocked, are you? Every community big or small harbors some sort of hate and ugliness in its underbelly. Oregon has a very racist history. I’m not proud of it, and I don’t support it, but I won’t pretend it doesn’t exist. Hopefully that isn’t the reason that nice young couple was murdered.”

  “He was hanged,” Zander forced out. “That’s a pretty clear message.”

  “Or someone wanted the shock value. Or to put investigators on the wrong path.” She tilted her head a degree, her gaze narrowing. “Why am I doing your job?”

  “You’re not.” But Zander was grateful for the reminder; he knew better than to let his focus narrow. Vina was correct to consider alternatives. “Was Lincoln Mills black?”

  “No.” Her expression closed off. “He was a good father, and his death was a tragedy. His girls have suffered horribly since he died.”

  5

  It was midafternoon when Emily arrived at the diner and tried not to stare at Madison’s long, pink tulle skirt and black T-shirt as her sister waited tables. Old Converse tennis shoes and a small tiara rounded out the outfit. The clothes would be understandable on a thirteen-year-old. Or a six-year-old. But her sister was thirty-one.

  Emily sneaked to her tiny office without being seen and collapsed into a chair, her brain scrambling over how to talk with her staff about Lindsay’s death.

  Her employees were her second family. Along with Madison, Leo, her line cook, and Isaac were currently working. Isaac did everything besides cook and wait tables. Dishes. Cleanup. Prep work. The sullen teen wasn’t a talker, but he was a good worker. With Lindsay and herself—and sometimes the aunts—the five of them kept the restaurant running through the quiet months. Lindsay’s absence would leave a gaping hole.

  This wouldn’t be easy.

  Emily procrastinated, balancing the books for the previous day, the numbers soothing her overstimulated mind. It took only a few minutes; business was slow. She sucked in a breath and forced herself to leave the office.

  Madison spotted her, and Emily gestured for her sister to follow as she headed toward the kitchen. Only two tables were occupied. Emily shoved open the swinging door and stepped into the kitchen, feeling the tension in her shoulders reduce a bit. It always happened. Behind the kitchen doors she was no longer on display to the diners. Back here it was just her and her employees. A place to relax before putting her hostess face back on.

  But today was different.

  From his position behind the prep area, Leo caught her eye and immediately laid down his knife and wiped his hands on his apron, his expression guarded.

  Emily’s throat closed. She couldn’t speak.

  Behind her, Madison stopped just inside the swinging door. Leo read Emily’s face. Her cook had worked in the restaurant since before Emily was born and was like an uncle to her. He turned his head toward the out-of-sight dishwashing alcove and shouted, “Isaac. Can you come out here?”

  The teen emerged, his apron soaked and hesitation in his step.

  The three employees stared at her, waiting.

  Madison spoke first, her voice cracking in a show of emotion unusual for her. “What happened to Lindsay? Was she really murdered? Her husband too? Rumors are flying, and I don’t know what to believe. They say their house is crawling with police.”

  Leo and Isaac were silent, their gazes on Emily. She looked directly at Leo and saw he was expecting the worst. She gave it to him.

  “Lindsay was killed. Sean too,” Emily finally forced out, her mouth bone-dry. “They don’t know what happened yet, but they’re investigating.”

  Madison sucked in a rapid breath with a sob. “No. That can’t be true. I talked to her last night.”

  “Holy shit,” Isaac muttered, thrusting his hands in his back pockets. He wouldn’t look at Emily, staring anywhere else in the kitchen, his eyes growing red as he rapidly blinked.

  Leo was silent, but waves of shock and sorrow rolled off him. He didn’t have any relatives and had adopted the diner’s employees as his family. Emily knew Lindsay had been a favorite. He abruptly turned and marched off. Emily heard the rear delivery door open and slam shut.

  “This isn’t happening,” Madison muttered, her lips white. “You’re mistaken.” She grabbed the counter near the coffee machine.

  Emily shook her head, unable to speak.

  Sean’s hanged body flashed in her mind. A bloody Lindsay on the floor of her bedroom.

  No one needed those details right now.

  “How?” Madison spit out. “How?”

  “That’s for the police to determine.”

  Fury and sorrow alternated in Madison’s eyes.

  “Do we need to close the restaurant?” Isaac asked. “You know . . . because . . .”

  The idea had crossed Emily’s mind more than once. She looked from Isaac to Madison. “Your thoughts?” The two stared miserably at each other.

  “I’d rather stay busy,” Isaac mumbled. “I don’t want to sit around at home and think about it.” He wiped a hand across his face.

  The bell on the front entrance sounded. Customers. Madison’s distraught expression vanished. “I’ve got it.” She spun and hit the swinging door hard with her palm to open it.

  Emily froze and then went after her, concerned with Madison’s emotions at the moment.

  “Madison!” A child’s shout sounded from the front lobby. A small girl dashed over and stopped in front of Emily’s sister, admiring the tulle skirt and crown. “You’re so pretty today,” the child sighed, her rapturous gaze studying Madison from head to toe.

  Madison bent over and smiled, meeting the child’s eyes. “Bethany. I love your boots.” The girl grinned and squirmed in pleasure, lifting a pink-rubber-booted foot into the air.

  Emily held her breath. The upset Madison from the kitchen had been abruptly replaced with a caring waitress.

  Emily glanced at Bethany’s mother and father. He held the door open for his wife, gesturing her ahead of him. She didn’t recognize the attractive couple. Or the little girl. Not locals.

  Clearly Madison had made a new friend.

  Madison took Bethany’s hand and tipped her head at the mother. “I’ve got a great table ready for you.” She and Bethany led the way, talking nonstop, the mother following.

  Bethany’s father didn’t trail after his family. Instead he turned his serious gaze on Emily.

  “I swear Madison isn’t crazy,” Emily told him, her mouth still dry from the bleak minutes in the kitchen. “She just has an odd sense of style.”

  He glanced after the trio but made no move to join his wife. “I like the tiara. You don’t see that every day.” He turned his attention to Emily. “I’m looking for Emily Mills.”

  Emily looked at the mother and girl, now deep in discussion with Madison at a table near the toasty fireplace.

  The corners of his lips lifted in a small smile. “Not my family. I just held the door.”

  “You looked like a family,” Emily stated, sizing him up. The three of them could have graced the cover of a parenting magazine. “She could easily pass as your daughter.” They had the same shade of light-brown hair and gray eyes.

  An odd expression flashed over his face, and he pressed his lips together.

  Emily felt as if she’d made a faux pas. “What do
you need with Emily?” she quickly asked, unwilling to announce her identity to a stranger.

  He pulled identification out of his coat’s inner pocket and opened it for her. “I have some questions for her about this morning.”

  Special Agent Zander Wells. The FBI had arrived.

  Her call had been taken seriously. She offered her hand. “Emily Mills. I’m glad you’re here.”

  The FBI agent sat across from Emily in her tiny office. She’d started to lead him to a table in the diner and then realized they needed absolute privacy. Her office was cramped—and that was describing it nicely. Her tiny desk was pushed into a corner, barely leaving room for two chairs and a filing cabinet. Her walls were covered with shelves, packed with three-ring binders of paperwork for the restaurant and a few framed old photographs. Agent Wells focused on one. She followed his gaze.

  “That’s my sisters and me. I was about ten years old, so that means Madison was seven and Tara fifteen.” The three girls were posed in front of the big Barton Diner sign with pots of colorful flowers at their feet. They all wore shorts and squinted in the sunlight.

  A good day.

  “The restaurant has always been in your family?” Agent Wells asked.

  “Yes. My grandfather opened it in 1978.” She wondered how long the agent would engage in small talk. His eyes were sharp as he took in the rest of the office, giving her a few moments to silently take his measure. She estimated he was around forty. When he’d first entered with the woman and girl, she would have guessed closer to her own age of thirty-four. But now, close up, she could see there were lines at the corners of his eyes and the faint start of silver at his temples. His calm gaze returned to her, and she searched his face for a hint of his thoughts. He was unreadable.

  She didn’t like it.

  “Do you mind if I record this?” he asked.

  “Go ahead.” She frowned. “When Sheriff Greer talked to me, he didn’t even write anything down. Of course, it only took two minutes.”

  Agent Wells started to record. “Some people have good memories. Now . . . you were here at the restaurant when Lindsay was supposed to start her shift?”

  “Yes. She was to be here at seven. Leo stuck his head in the office at five minutes after to tell me she was late. That’s when I first called her. She didn’t answer her cell phone, and I left a message.”

  “Leo is your cook? Has he worked here long?”

  “Leo is an original employee. He was a busboy when the place first opened.” She smiled, imagining the large cook as a teen. “I don’t think he was older than thirteen. My grandfather paid him under the table for years.”

  “What did you do when Lindsay didn’t answer her phone?”

  “I waited a few minutes, called again, waited a little more, and called a third time. That’s when I dug out her employment application and looked up Sean’s number. No answer on his phone either.”

  Agent Wells nodded, his calm eyes locked on hers.

  “I decided to drive over. It’s only a few minutes. I told Leo I was leaving—there were only four people eating in the diner at that time, so I knew he could handle everything for a few minutes.” She took a breath. “I fully expected that Lindsay had overslept.”

  “And when you got to her home?”

  “I noticed two vehicles were parked in the driveway and rang the doorbell. I waited and then rang again, very surprised that no one was answering. I called her cell from the front door, and I heard it ring inside. That’s when I tried the door handle.” She looked down at her hands, her fingers digging into her thighs. She folded them in her lap, feeling as if she were in church.

  “The door was unlocked?”

  “Yes. I pushed it open and called out for both of them—I didn’t want to startle anyone. As soon as I stepped inside, I knew something was wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I could feel it. The air felt thick inside—I don’t know how to explain it. It felt . . . wrong.” She looked up and spotted a brief flash of recognition in the agent’s eyes.

  He knows what I mean.

  “And I could smell it. The blood. I could smell the blood.” The words stuck to her tongue as she remembered how much blood she had seen in the bedroom and how hard her heart had pounded, making her entire body vibrate.

  “I saw a dark trail that led from the bedroom and down the hall toward the kitchen.”

  “You’d been in her home before?” he asked.

  “Yes. A few times. Even though she was my employee, we were friends. We often watched Game of Thrones together, and I’d help her on the nights she fed the football team.”

  “The football team?”

  “Sean coached the high school’s football team along with teaching history. He’d have everyone over for dinner a couple times a month.”

  “All of them?”

  “It’s not a big school,” Emily pointed out. “Maybe twenty or twenty-five kids would come. Lindsay loved it. She’d plan all week to make burgers or pizza or spaghetti. Those players can eat a lot.”

  “I imagine.” The agent looked slightly stunned.

  “She and Sean really loved those kids,” Emily said quietly, remembering how happy the little home had felt when it overflowed with hungry teenage bodies. A contrast to how still and stagnant it had been that morning.

  “This couple was popular.” It wasn’t a question.

  “They were,” Emily said. “They both put out a lot of positive energy that made people feel good. Everyone liked them.”

  The two seconds of silence that followed her words seemed to stretch forever.

  Someone didn’t like them.

  Emily Mills was a good witness, Zander admitted.

  She was calm and seemed to have clear memories of the morning. Not only had she painted a consistent picture of the crime scene; she’d also given insight into the victims’ lives.

  After she’d determined that Lindsay was dead, she’d followed the blood trail out of the house and spotted Sean. That’s when she called 911. A single deputy arrived first, and she waited out front as he cleared the home.

  “I couldn’t believe it when I realized the deputy had cut the rope.” Emily briefly closed her eyes. “He’d taken so long inside the house, I went to check on him and found him in the backyard, essentially having a panic attack. That’s when more officers showed up. It was a bit of a mess after that. No one seemed to know what to do.”

  “You sound like you were very calm about a horrific situation.”

  “Trust me, I was screaming inside. But during emergencies my brain focuses on what needs to be done next. I guess I compartmentalize to get through them.”

  “The sheriff told me it’d been four years since he’d had a murder in his county.”

  Scorn shone from her eyes. “That’s no excuse. They should have known how—” She clamped her mouth shut.

  “How what?”

  “How to secure the scene. Police work 101.” She glanced away. “I was married to a cop for five years. That is basic stuff. It should have been second nature to them.”

  “What about when the sheriff arrived?”

  “One of the older deputies had things organized by then. Sheriff Greer walked the scene and then talked to me, asking what I’d seen. When he said it looked like a murder-suicide, my jaw nearly hit the ground. I asked if he’d seen the bloody drag marks from the bedroom to the outside. He said it could be from Sean walking outside, or maybe he moved Lindsay around.”

  “You noticed the symbol on Sean’s forehead, correct?”

  “Yes. When I asked the sheriff about it, he said Sean may have cut himself while killing Lindsay. He told me I was jumping to conclusions by suggesting it was a hate crime.” Emily’s eyes were hard, anger lurking behind them. “That’s when I called the Portland FBI office.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Zander told her. “We might not have been notified for another day or two.”

  “Did you already talk to the first d
eputy?”

  “My partner is currently interviewing deputies at the sheriff’s office.” He mentally ran through his list of questions for Emily. “Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt the Fitches?”

  “No,” she said firmly. “They haven’t been here that long, but our community immediately embraced them. They brought a spark to the town. They were such a cute couple, and Lindsay loved it here.”

  “Where did they move from?”

  “Portland. I’m not sure where exactly. I think Sean’s family still lives there. I don’t know about Lindsay’s family.” Her forehead wrinkled as she thought. “I can’t remember her talking about them. I didn’t pry.”

  “Were you her closest friend in town?”

  She frowned. “She considered my sister Madison to be her closest friend.”

  He glanced at the old photo of the three sisters. Emily stood out as the brunette between her two blonde sisters. The smallest girl had her arms spread wide and her chin tipped up as if she wanted the photo all for herself. He had no problem believing that she’d grown up to be a tiara-wearing waitress. Emily’s hands were on her hips, her legs long and thin, giving a hint of the tall woman she’d grow up to be. The oldest sister’s smile was coy, her gaze locked on the photographer. “Where’s your other sister?”

  Emily turned her head to look at the picture. Zander had the feeling she’d done it to avoid eye contact, not to refresh her thoughts about her sister.

  “I don’t know.”

  Curiosity lit up his brain. Her tone had been flat, removed, and a distance formed between the two of them in the tiny office. He said nothing, waiting.

  Emily finally looked away from the picture after a long silent moment. “Tara left town around twenty years ago. We haven’t heard from her since.”

  Twenty years? No contact?

  Zander looked back at the photo, and Tara’s coy gaze now felt directed at him.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  Without getting out of her chair, Emily stretched for the doorknob and easily opened the door. A teenage boy peered around the door, and his hair fell across his eyes. He shoved it out of the way and turned his attention to Emily.