Final Grave

by Nadja Bernitt

  “You have to understand—Harold was eight years older than me. I idolized him. I used to see him at least twice a month. We’d walk the hills and talk, fish, hike. We played war games and practiced survival techniques. We scouted like solders. Harold tracked me. He’d give me an half an hour’s start, then come after me. His skill was on par with a blood hound’s. I never got away.”

  She wondered where this was headed. “Kids-play?”

  “At first,” he said. “Then one day we hiked through the woods below Bogus Basin to a place he called his secret meadow. He showed me an animal skeleton. It looked like a wolf’s or coyote’s. He told me he’d watched ants strip the carcass. Said he’d found the animal just after it died. He laid it beside an ants nest. He watched them swarm over the carcass and kept coming back to check on it. Took twelve days to strip it clean.

  His eyes glittered like a madman’s when he told me that sometimes you don’t need the chemicals to get down to the skeleton.”

  The skin crawled on her arms. “Bizarre.”

  “Gets worse.” Jason’s jaw tightened. “Later, he admitted it wasn’t a wolf, but his own retriever, which he claimed had been run over by a logging truck. But I remembered seeing stakes in the ground. Dead dogs don’t need to be staked.”

  She thought of the unwavering trust dogs have for their masters. The blood drained from her face. “My God, his own dog.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Meri Ann paced back and forth on the front porch of Chez Jay’s, trying to comprehend Harold Graber’s grisly act. She shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets, racking her brain. Thinking, thinking, thinking. At one point she bumped into the mannequin on the porch swing and said Excuse me.

  A car’s horn honked and she glanced up to see Mendiola’s dark green SUV at the curb, a welcome sight. She’d expected him, but not the degree of welcome she felt at his arrival.

  She hustled down the stairs and climbed into the cab. The familiar scent of his soap caught her, the same soap she’d used only hours earlier in his shower. Had she really done that—yes.

  The visor of his baseball cap partially shielded his eyes. “Morning. Where’s your car, at Becky’s?” He didn’t wait for her answer, but pointed to her hair. “Whoa, that’s short.”

  She smoothed it back. “I suppose it is. So how was the staff meeting?”

  “Like a circus with a fourth ring.”

  He picked up an open can of Dr Pepper from the console cup holder. “I don’t have another but you’re welcome to share mine.”

  The newfound familiarity and her relaxed attitude about it would take some getting used to. “No thanks. Just tell me what happened.”

  He took a drag from the can and set it back down. “We’ve identified the victim at Camel’s Back Park.”

  Meri Ann’s eyes widened. “So fast?”

  “We got lucky. Forensics came up with a dental match on a woman from Twin Falls, named Barbara Schoonover who disappeared about three months before your mother. And here’s the kicker. She worked in the same building where Wheatley’s has an office. You knew he had an office in Twin Falls, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Your Aunt Sylvie mentioned Wheatley’s out-of-town business. But did he have that office when the woman disappeared?”

  Mendiola nodded. “Sure he did. The weekend that Schoonover disappeared, he and Tina had been visiting her parents who live there. What’s more, Wheatley’s alibi for the Friday your mom went missing was also Twin Falls. It’s only two hours from Boise.”

  She knew the logistics. “So we’re back to Wheatley.”

  “Yup. Dillon’s scratched the TV interview and dropped surveillance from Graber.”

  Meri Ann fastened her seat belt and flashed him a questioning look. “So we’re doing nothing at all about Graber?”

  “Pushed to the back burner. Right now I’m headed to Wheatley’s. We’ve got a search warrant for his house. Dillon’s gonna meet us there. You want to come along?”

  “Definitely, but if the search is a bust, I want to continue with Graber.”

  Mendiola turned on his blinker and shifted into drive. He blended into traffic. “I don’t get it. Even when we find a skeleton in Wheatley’s backyard and identify the victim as having worked in the same office building as he did, you hold out for Graber?”

  “Jason’s known Graber since they were kids. He said Graber knew everything there was to know about taxidermy.” She repeated the gruesome story about the ants and her stomach churned as badly as when she’d heard it the first time. She said, “He killed his own dog.”

  Mendiola stared in disbelief. “The hell you say.”

  “Jason saw him in town two weeks ago, which coincides with the discovery on Table Rock.”

  Mendiola mulled this over. “I see what you’re saying, but right now, Wheatley’s in prime position. With his medical background and close proximity, we’re thinking something transpired between your mother and him. It’s logical to think he followed her to the supermarket, that she called him Birdie—his name’s Robin. Something in his freaky relationships with women triggered his killer instinct. Maybe he had a thing with the woman in Twin Falls, too.”

  Meri Ann turned to the window, her breath clouding the glass. “What about the chemicals found on the bodies? And the taxidermy materials we found in Graber’s shed?”

  Mendiola shook his head. “Yeah, I thought we had our man for sure, at least till Dillon hit me with the forensic report on the second victim, implicating Wheatley. Seems we’ve still got two suspects, Wheatley and Graber. And they’re playing leapfrog for first position.”

  At least his willingness to acknowledge Graber’s guilt encouraged her. “I’m thinking as soon as we get to Wheatley’s, we’ll eliminate one of them.” Him she thought.

  She recalled her early suspicions of Wheatley. But after their confrontation, he had changed her mind. She had interviewed enough liars to know how to read truth or falsehood on their faces and in the movement of their eyes. Her skills were excellent and unless he had perfected lying, she believed that he’d told the truth. Mendiola would find that out for himself.

  Her head throbbed and she rubbed it.

  “Tired?”

  A wry smile tugged at the corners of her lips, evoking memories of showering in his bathroom. “I had a late night.”

  “You didn’t wake me when you took off.”

  Of course not. She’d barely breathed as she passed his bed, her feet as silent as one of his cats. “I needed to get back to Becky,” she said. “The situation’s pretty scary for her.”

  “You’re good friends.”

  “More like family in the way we get on each other’s nerves.”

  He steered with his left hand, his right beside the gearshift, a millimeter short of hers. He said, “About last night, Meri Ann, I think we got along pretty well.”

  So now it was Meri Ann—Meri Ann who had fallen asleep in the crook of his arm. “Even considering Geronimo, I think so too.”

  He leaned closer to her, so that his shoulder rubbed against hers. “Want to go to a wedding on Friday night?”

  Go out with him as on a date? She nearly choked from surprise. “I… I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  She wasn’t sure why she’d said no. She could easily find something to wear in Meg’s well-stocked closet. She had enjoyed his company yesterday, perhaps more than she should have. She gave him an apologetic shrug. “I need the time with Becky. She’s still upset with me.” It was a half-truth.

  “Well, give it some thought. I think we’d have a good time but I can take no for an answer. I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want.”

  “I do and I don’t,” she said, aware of her mixed message.

  He squeezed her hand and for an instant she imagined him naked
with Karen Harper. She removed her hand to her lap not because of Karen, just touching him sent a jolt of electrical lust through her body. Crazy or not, if she went to that wedding, she knew she’d end up in his bed. Ha. Starting up with Jack Mendiola, who was geographically impossible and even worse whose life was more out of control than hers, would be an act of madness.

  “Okay then Detective Fehr, it’s business as usual.”

  She felt relieved, then terribly empty.

  # # #

  Birdie found an isolated marine surplus store in Garden City, not far from the Bannock Bar. He parked on a side street to make sure no one saw his truck, a minor precaution since the place was void of customers. Still, it seemed prudent, and he’d exercised prudence in every minute detail, all the way down to his disguise: a duck-hunter’s cap with earflaps and a bulky parka to hide his body frame.

  On entering, he checked every aisle as well as the front of the store for surveillance equipment. But the 1950s dinosaur of a store didn’t even take Master Card or VISA. No digital cash register or clever impulse items were displayed at check out—well, nothing but dusty packages of beef jerky and Red Hots clipped to a cardboard panel. Certainly no surveillance cameras to record his image.

  A toilet flushed and seconds later a bone-skinny clerk stepped out from a door at the back of the store. His flannel shirt and peg-legged pants were so out of style, they matched the time-warp store.

  Birdie nodded and went about his business, methodically gathering a dozen taut new bungee cords, six twelve-foot lengths of quarter-inch nylon line from a wooden spool, and a five-pound bag of rock salt—no telling why the store kept rock salt.

  The clerk measured the line, flapping his thin ribbon lips with small talk. “Fine day for boating. Too bad the water’s low up at the reservoir. Only twelve-foot lengths of line? That’s short, even for bowlines, don’t you think? You got a canoe or something?”

  Birdie shook his head.

  “So what’s it for? Something kinky?”

  “As a matter of fact, it’s project for the love of my life.”

  The clerk laughed as though he understood. Fool. Birdie’s muscles tensed, and an urge to strike the man overwhelmed him. “All I need is enough length to tie her in a choke hold before I kill her.” His arrogance spewed out like venom.

  The clerk recoiled in shock, then disbelief. Birdie reveled in the man’s discomfort, slid his right hand into his pocket and pulled out a pair of leather gloves.

  The clerk squirmed, glancing over his shoulder at the door.

  “Just cut the cord,” Birdie said, in his softest voice, then slipped on his gloves.

  “Sure, Mister. Sure You’ve got one helluva a sense of humor. Kill your wife.” He giggled like a girl.

  No, a sheep, Birdie thought. The voice bleated. Its staccato triggered Birdie’s need. Wolves killed sheep. He wrenched a cord from the clerk’s hand and whipped it around the man’s neck.

  The clerk staggered in fright. His fingers clawed at the line, unable to loosen it. Finally, his arms flailed in the air. He twisted and slammed against a wall of seven-foot metal shelves. They teetered to and fro, finally banging against the wall. Boxes of cleats and brass screws rained down like shrapnel.

  Unbothered by the commotion, Birdie continued to tighten the line until the man’s soft neck skin gathered in folds. In minutes, the clerk’s face turned gray, then blue. His mouth slacked open, and his tongue emerged from his mouth. Still, Birdie cinched the line tighter. Little red speckles dotted the man’s bulging eyes. His skinny frame finally went limp.

  Birdie’s grip loosened and the man fell at his feet. He straddled the body for a moment, caught in an orgasmic release of jubilation. He’d never before killed on impulse. The exhilaration surprised him. He glanced at his watch, amazed that the whole transaction hadn’t taken but fifteen minutes.

  He looped the nylon line over his shoulder and pocketed the bungee cords. On his way out he grabbed a bag of Red-Hots, tore it open with his teeth and savored a mouthful of the candy. The spicy cinnamon tingled his gums, his tongue, his throat. He stepped outside, filled his lungs with air. He felt light enough to fly. “Birdie,” he said, amazed at how much he enjoyed the sound of a nickname he’d once despised.

  He drove around town in a hyper-haze, unable to settle down. The traffic light on Warm Springs Avenue seemed to take a lifetime to move from red to green. He tapped a drum roll on the steering wheel, eager to get going. By chance he glanced left at a green Chevy Blazer, then did a double take, gawking in amazement. Sonofabitch. Meri Ann was on the passenger side, no more than three feet away. Boise was a small town but this uncanny incident, like all the rest, amazed him.

  Her passenger-side window was open and that short, short dark hair fluttered in a breeze. Her wide apart eyes watched the traffic ahead, alert, intelligent, sensuous. So like her mother’s. His palms broke out in a sweat and he almost lost hold of the wheel. Goosebumps rose on his neck and arms, as though he’d been caught. Then he remembered his disguise, the rented truck. He was anonymous.

  “Joanna,” he whispered. “My dearest, Joanna.” He sat in awe as her likeness turned and stared right through him.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Dillon had assigned Meri Ann and Mendiola to search Wheatley’s master bedroom while the rest of the search team worked downstairs. Any other room would have made Meri Ann’s job easier, but here she was, again, in a bedroom with Mendiola.

  Her hands moved deftly in between layers of Wheatley’s socks, handkerchiefs and undershirts. In the next drawer his laundered and folded dress shirts, odd pen sets still in their boxes. What did she expect to find? A weapon with dried blood? Trophies? Photos of the victims? She’d found nothing so far and still doubted he was their man. Yet he could be she reminded herself.

  Across the room, Mendiola rummaged through a drawer of Mrs. Wheatley’s silk and soft nylon tricot lingerie with bullish movements. He wasn’t at it long when he gave the drawer a frustrated tumble and crossed to the master closet. “I’ll look in here.”

  Dillon nodded from her post at the doorway. She stood like a sentinel, keeping Robin Wheatley at bay. He moved restlessly behind her, his wireless phone to his ear. He claimed to be looking for his wife. He said she had been missing for hours but then, so had Harold Graber.

  Meri Ann finished her search of Wheatley’s bureau and turned her attention to the drawer of his wife’s underclothing, which Mendiola had only searched half-heartedly. The scent of Lauren perfume overpowered her, the same scent her mom had worn and a reminder of Tina Wheatley’s sick obsession.

  At the bottom, she felt a lump beneath the drawer lining. She fished out a thin book. The cover, like the rest of the room, was Laura Ashley feminine. Yellow roses curled around a romantically scripted title, Thoughts to treasure . . . .

  She sat on the edge of the bed and thumbed through the pages. The journal spanned five years. Her eyes widened as she read what amounted to the ramblings of a mad woman. Her mother’s name appeared in every troubled account, prayer, thought and deed. “My God,” Meri Ann said.

  Jason promised me the same color, same cut as Joanna’s, but it’s never the same. Robin ignores me. Two weeks later: I saw Joanna’s ghost today. Followed a dark-haired woman downtown, into the post office, through the Bon Marche. It wasn’t Joanna, though.

  She is dead. I see her tangled body in my dreams, the dripping knife, her heart in my hand.

  The last entry was dated the previous morning:

  Robin still loves Joanna, and now her clone taunts me. He comes and goes like a phantom, no time for anything but thoughts of her. Blessed Isaiah: For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption has come. Then, She must die.

  A Sarasota phone number followed. It was Meri Ann’s.

  She cleared her throat, which felt raw as she swallowed an
d a bitter taste trickled down her throat. “Lieutenant,” she called, crossing to where Dillon stood. “You’d better take a look at this.”

  Dillon opened the book, scanned random pages, ending at the last entry, Meri Ann’s personal information. “Could it be her? Think she called your home, checking up on you?” Dillon glanced over Meri Ann’s shoulder. “Hey, Jack, get over here.”

  Wheatley was close enough to them to overhear. He nodded in the direction of the book. “I know what you’re thinking but you’re wrong. I’ve seen her journal. Tina leaves it out sometimes, so I’ll find it.”

  Worry lines etched his forehead, yet he blurted out defiantly, “Don’t be so cock-sure it’s evidence, or anything even remotely admissible in court. Your warrant was written on me, not Tina.”

  Dillon stood her ground. “If I were you, I’d stick to engineering, sir.”

  “She’s innocent until proven guilty,” he said. “We all are.”

  “You got that right,” Dillon said. “So where is your wife, Mr. Wheatley? We’d like to clear her name.”

  “At this moment, I’ve no idea where she is. She had a doctor’s appointment today, as I told you. She walked out on the session; he thinks she’s suicidal.” Wheatley glared at Dillon. “I’m not asking you, lieutenant, I’m begging you to find her.”

  Dillon’s fair face burned red. “I intend to, Mr. Wheatley and you’re coming with us. So call your favorite attorney. You’ve got some explaining to do. So has your wife.”

  Mendiola approached Dillon, his onyx eyes on the book. “You got something?”

  “Mrs. Wheatley’s diary,” Meri Ann said. “We need to talk to her.”

  “What’s it say?” Mendiola asked. His cell phone rang and his hand slid down to his belt. He checked caller ID, then handed the phone to Meri Ann. “It’s for you—Becky.”

  Meri Ann stepped away from the trio and answered the call. “What’s up?”