exposed (Twisted Cedar Mysteries Book 3)

by C. J. Carmichael

  Some of Wade’s contemporaries—Dougal included—had been surprised when Kyle turned down a football scholarship to become his father’s business partner. But not Wade. Kyle was the kind of guy who preferred being the large fish in the small pond. For him, staying in Twisted Cedars, marrying his high school sweetheart and joining his dad’s company had been the logical choice.

  Successful business, beautiful wife, important standing in the community—until the birth of the twins, Kyle had led a charmed life, and Jim and Muriel had basked in their son’s success.

  But there was no doubt things had changed after Cory and Chester’s arrival. Daisy had withdrawn, become depressed and incapable of looking after herself, let alone her babies.

  The change in her behavior had been put down to post-partum psychosis—and Wade had the reports from her doctor to support that. No one knew if it was this illness, or something else, that had led Daisy to walk out on her husband and children a year later. Shortly after the divorce was finalized, she’d “disappeared” from town—or so everyone had thought.

  Though Kyle was currently serving time for criminally negligent homicide, Wade didn’t think anyone but Kyle—and possibly his parents—really knew what had happened the night Daisy died.

  Undoubtedly there had been an argument—but about what? Kyle had claimed they were talking about custody of the twins. But could it have been the affair with Brad Scott?

  On the face of it, none of this had anything to do with Chester’s disappearance. But his father’s arrest had definitely been responsible for Chester’s frame of mind the day he went missing. Possibly someone had used his feelings of anger and abandonment for their own ends...whatever they might be.

  Having reached Quinpool Realty, Wade went up the stairs to the second-floor apartment and rapped on the door. Jim answered immediately, in a state of obvious inebriation.

  “Have you found my grandson?” he asked, words blurring into the background noise of the television.

  “Not yet. I need to talk to you about some things.” Wade could see an open bottle of Scotch on the low table by the sofa, one-third empty. “Mind if I come in?”

  Jim didn’t answer, just walked away from the door and grabbed the remote. It took him a few tries to hit the mute button. “No sense talking to me. If I knew where Chester was, don’t you think I’d go get him myself?”

  “I’m wondering if there could be a connection between Chester’s disappearance and your family troubles.” The apartment had been finished with high end materials—granite countertop and stainless steel appliances in the adjacent kitchen. Good quality furnishings and nice paintings on the walls.

  But the place looked like hell. Not just messy, but actually dirty, to the point where a funky odor had developed. The condition of the apartment didn’t compute with what Wade knew of Jim. Not that long ago he’d been one of the best dressed men in town, with a beautiful Mercedes he kept in immaculate condition.

  “Family troubles,” Jim scoffed. “What would you know?”

  “I know ten years ago you had the world by the tail. Devoted wife, successful business, son married and happy, one of the biggest houses in town...” Wade glanced around the condo. “Contrast that with now. Your wife has left you, your business is closed, you live in a pigpen and your son is in prison.”

  Jim glared, his eyes spilling anger and hatred. “It’s all goddamned Daisy’s fault. She was so spoiled, so used to being the center of attention, she couldn’t handle the fact that the twins took the spotlight away from her.”

  “Her doctor diagnosed her with post-partum depression. Some people think the diagnosis should have gone further and that she actually had post-partum psychosis.”

  “Bullshit! She was the most selfish woman I’ve ever met. She deserted her own children!”

  “And then she had that affair...”

  “She had no shame,” Jim agreed. “Sleeping with the very guy her husband—”

  Abruptly he stopped, realizing he’d spoken thoughtlessly, admitted too much.

  “Goddamn you, Wade. Why are you digging in my family’s dirty laundry? This has nothing to do with Chester.”

  “No? You don’t think it’s possible the man who was sleeping with Daisy might be angry at Kyle for killing her?”

  “Kyle didn’t kill Daisy! It was a damned accident!”

  “Criminally negligent homicide is what the courts call it. Either way, accident or homicide, it’s because of Kyle that Daisy is dead. So maybe this man decides to get even by taking Chester.”

  Jim’s eyes widened with fright. Clearly this possibility had never occurred to him. “Scott wouldn’t do something like that. He has kids of his own.”

  Wade permitted himself a moment’s satisfaction as the name he’d been probing for slipped easily off Jim’s tongue. “The fact that Brad Scott has kids, means he knows how much he’ll hurt Kyle by taking Chester.”

  Jim let out a string of curse words. “Then what are you doing here? You need to haul Scott’s ass into jail and get him talking.”

  “I’ve spoken to Scott. And to his wife. Right now I don’t have a shred of evidence to suggest Scott kidnapped Chester.”

  “Then why the hell did you bring it up?”

  “To illustrate a point. It’s possible that the mistakes and tragedies connected with Daisy’s death are also connected to Chester’s disappearance. I need you to come clean with me. Tell me what really happened the night Daisy died.”

  Jim paced to the bottle on the table and topped up his glass with a shaking hand. “Kyle already told you everything. That’s why he’s in prison. To pay for his crimes.”

  “Maybe the reason he’s in prison is just to avoid a trial.”

  “That’s right. He didn’t want to put his kids through all the hell of a court case.”

  “Or maybe he just didn’t want to risk the truth coming out.”

  “That’s crazy. Kyle told you exactly what happened that night. And I backed up every detail I could.”

  “Yes, you’ve been a very protective father. But you went too far this time.”

  “You’re just speculating.”

  “Am I? Kyle told me he and Daisy were arguing about child custody issues the night she died. But that wasn’t true. They were fighting about her affair with Brad Scott. Kyle didn’t like that much, did he?”

  “What husband would?”

  “They were no longer married at that point.”

  Jim looked like he wanted to leap across the room and grab Wade’s throat. Instead he turned to the fireplace and a picture of his family taken during happier times, when he and Muriel were still married and the twins were about three-years-old.

  “You keep twisting my words. I won’t stand for it. I’ve got nothing else to say to you Sheriff. Now leave my home.”

  chapter eleven

  June 15 1972, Librarian Cottage outside of Twisted Cedars, Oregon

  It was ten on a Sunday evening, a month after the first time Shirley heard the distinctive knock on her door, that she heard it again. Immediately she sensed it was him.

  She’d just poured herself a cup of herbal tea, spilling a little in the saucer to her annoyance. Recently she’d developed a fine tremor in her hands. Most annoying. Miss Marple, always so stalwart in tense situations, would not be impressed.

  With each day that had passed since the young man first announced himself to her, Shirley had felt increasingly hopeful that having made his point with her, he would never return.

  There had been the puzzling matter of her red scarf’s disappearance, followed by the even more suspicious disappearance of the one she’d purchased to replace it.

  But women lost scarves all the time. They were almost as tricky as gloves to keep track of.

  She felt badly for the young man, of course, and for the boy he had been. But the unfortunate choice of his adoptive parents hadn’t been hers. The best thing for him was to put the past out of his mind and concentrate on the future. That’s wh
at she had done. And it kept her sane.

  Shirley sat at the table and sipped her tea, waiting for the second knock.

  It didn’t come.

  This time she didn’t even consider going for her gun. She was tough. But she wouldn’t be able to shoot him. Not now.

  So she waited. And when half an hour had passed in such silence that she began to wonder if she’d imagine the knock in the first place, she finally rose from her chair and opened the front door.

  In the summer dusk she could see the shadows of the forest around her. Above, in the indigo-blue sky a single star sparkled. The air held only the sighs of the branches rustling in the faint breeze.

  He could be hiding anywhere. He could have already left. Maybe he’d never even been here.

  And then, as she was about to shut the door, she saw it, a glimmer on the front mat. Upon closer inspection she saw it was a snow globe.

  She picked it up. It felt heavy in her hand. Inside the glass bubble was a miniature Main Street, and on the wooden base was inscribed Roseburg Oregon. Slowly she turned it over once, then again, sending bits of snow fluttering over the little shops, cars and people inside the globe.

  Two weeks ago she’d gone to the State Library Association conference in Roseburg.

  Did he know that? Was that why he’d purchased this for her?

  After one last look down the road that led, eventually, to civilization, Shirley withdrew into her house. She carried the snow globe to a lamp where she studied it more closely. There was no hidden message, nothing at all to suggest the boy had brought this for her.

  She almost threw it away. She wanted no reminders, and just the sight of this made her skin crawl. But somehow, she could not, so instead she placed it on the bottom shelf of her curio cabinet where she would never see it unless she crouched down to her knees.

  * * *

  At nine that evening Wade held an impromptu meeting in the situation room with Marnie and Deputies Field, Carter and Dunne. As he glanced around the table at his exhausted and discouraged team, he felt an unaccustomed sense of hopelessness.

  “It’s been over twenty-nine hours since Chester Quinpool disappeared, and so far we haven’t found one piece of physical evidence. We have no idea if we’re dealing with a runaway, an accident, an abduction or a homicide.”

  “I hope this isn’t your idea of a pep talk.” Marnie was going around the table offering fresh coffee. Earlier she’d placed a plate of donuts at the center of the table. Of the assorted dozen, only two were left.

  The team was already strung out on caffeine and sugar. Wade knew they couldn’t keep operating at this level of intensity.

  “It’s reality,” Wade countered. “Unless someone knows something I don’t?”

  He glanced at each team member individually. Not one spoke up.

  “Right,” Wade continued. “Until now we’ve been focusing on an intensive search and questioning of potential witnesses in town and within a ten mile radius. It’s time to widen the net and take a more systematic approach.”

  Again his words were met with a weary silence. The only sound Wade could hear was Carter, tapping his pen repetitively on his notepad, an anxious gesture betraying the high-strung state of his nerves.

  “Carter, you’ll be search operation coordinator for Curry County.” Carter, with his physical stamina, would have the energy for the job. “It’s time to pull out of the forest reserve around the Librarian Cottage and key in on campgrounds, state parks, recreational properties. With the summer season over, it’s possible Chester could be hiding out in a nearby vacant cottage. Let’s cover as many square miles as is physically possible, with copters where necessary.”

  “On it.”

  Wade turned to Deputy Dunn, next. His eldest deputy’s large-frame was hunched over a stack of paperwork and he was shuffling through the pages, as if hoping a magical clue would leap off one of the pages.

  “Dunn, you’ll be our on-site coordinator supervising change of command, coordinating with the county and state departments and agencies, responding to investigative inquires and gathering intelligence.”

  The most senior officer in the department, Dunn sometimes took umbrage at being assigned duties without consultation, but tonight he just nodded his assent.

  “I’ve asked the state police for help in case this turns into a homicide investigation, and they’re coordinating an Oregon-wide search as well. Field, you’ll remain liaison with Chester’s family, as well as manage our media relations. Marnie can help you with that. She’s already got some stuff up on Facebook and Twitter, that sort of thing.” Wade was a little vague on the details of social media, but he knew he could count on Marnie to sort it out.

  Next Wade filled the team in on the conversation Cory had seen her brother have with an older man who appeared to be a football coach. He told them about his discussions with Brad Scott, his wife, and Jim Quinpool.

  “I’m going to drive to Salem tomorrow to question Kyle,” Wade concluded. “At this point I’m grasping at straws, but I want to make sure Chester’s disappearance isn’t connected to his mother’s death, or his father’s subsequent incarceration.”

  There was some trivial chit chat after this, which Wade quickly put a halt to.

  “I expect the overtime is going to continue for the foreseeable future, or until we find our boy,” Wade said. “With that in mind, I want each of you to grab some sleep tonight. To borrow an analogy from Carter, this is no longer a sprint, it’s a marathon.”

  Five minutes later the only one left in the room with Wade was Marnie. She was collecting the dirty coffee cups and brushing donut crumbs off the table.

  “Leave that for the cleaning crew. You should get some rest.”

  “I napped a few hours this afternoon,” she admitted. “That couch in your office is pretty comfortable.”

  “You took a nap in my office?”

  “Why not? It was the only quiet place in the building.” She put her hands on her hips, a combative posture she seemed to take quite often around him. “You don’t object, do you?”

  He couldn’t think of a logical reason why he should. And yet, later, when he returned to his office contemplating zoning out himself for a bit, it seemed he could still see the indent of Marnie’s petite, curvy body in the old leather cushions.

  So he drove home instead, where he followed a two-hour sleep with a long shower and a proper breakfast of eggs, toast and orange juice. The drive to Salem took him four-and-a-half hours, and he arrived at the start of opening hours for the Oregon State Penitentiary.

  Kyle had lost some weight, and his skin had turned sallow, but he held his head high as he walked to the other side of the table and took his seat across from Wade.

  “Have you found my son yet?”

  His tone grated, reminding Wade of the Kyle he’d known in high school. Anytime he was caught out for doing something wrong, he immediately went on the offensive. That quality had made him a great football player. It didn’t serve him quite as well now.

  “When we find Chester, you’ll be one of the first to hear about it. We’re doing everything we can. I came here because I’m hoping you can help.”

  “You get me out of here, and I’d love to. It’s killing me to be stuck in here when my son needs me.”

  “We’ve got a lot of manpower working this investigation,” Wade assured him. On this point he couldn’t help but sympathize with his old friend. “But we could use more information. Has it occurred to you that Chester’s disappearance might be related to you, and the crimes that put you in here?”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  “I mean I would like the truth. You told me you and Daisy were fighting about custody of the twins the night she died. But I believe you were really arguing about her affair with Brad Scott. Isn’t that right?”

  As Wade stared calmly, directly, into Kyle’s eyes, he could almost see the other man’s inner squirming.

  “What? How did you—”r />
  “How did I find out about that? During routine questioning as I was looking for your son.” Wade planted his hands on the table and leaned in. “What else have you lied about Kyle?”

  “Nothing important. I can’t see why it matters to you why Daisy and I were arguing. I readily admit that I pushed her. Harder than I meant to, obviously.”

  “There are times when so-called “white lies” are acceptable. Homicide investigations do not qualify.”

  “Fine. You caught me out.” Kyle leaned back in his chair. “Yes, Daisy was sleeping with Brad Scott. And yes, I wasn’t pleased. Satisfied now?”

  “Anything else in your story you want to modify?”

  Kyle set his jaw and didn’t add a word.

  His original story was that his parents and children had been asleep upstairs during the argument, and only after Daisy had been pushed into the wall, struck her head on the corner, and died, had his father come down to see what was going on.

  But Wade was no longer prepared to accept that version.

  “How about your claim that the two of you were alone when you pushed Daisy? If you were having a loud argument, surely at least one of your parents would have woken up and come to see what was going on.”

  Kyle remained mute, though his eyes shone with resentful anger.

  Wade pushed harder. “You weren’t alone when you pushed her. Who else was in the room?”

  Kyle’s gaze shifted slightly to the left as he spit out, “No one.”

  Wade leaned forward. “That’s a lie.”

  “Where’s your proof?”

  Up until that moment Wade had been confident Kyle was responsible for Daisy’s death, a conclusion borne out by the fact that Kyle and Jim had taken Daisy’s body out to the Librarian Cottage and buried it in an unused vegetable plot.

  But in the moment of that slight hesitation and shifting of Kyle’s eyes, it occurred to Wade that not only was Kyle not alone when he pushed Daisy—but quite possibly he hadn’t done the pushing at all.