A Cold Dark Place

by Gregg Olsen

  “Hey Emily, can you come back to the office?” It was Kiplinger. His normally gregarious nature was masked by concern. “Marina Wilbur is here to see you.”

  Emily searched her memory, but nothing came up. She didn’t know anyone by that name. Before she said so, Kip offered up more information.

  “She’s Peg Martin’s sister. From back east. She’s here to make arrangements.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Emily flipped her phone shut and sat in her car. The seat belt warning pinged, but she paid it no mind. She turned the ignition and looked in the rearview mirror, catching her own reflection for the first time. Her eyes were underscored with dark circles. This is what a mother looks like who has lost her daughter. The face is mine.

  Emily engaged the seat belt, which stopped the pinging. She wanted to cry.

  Wednesday, 4:45 P.M.

  Kiplinger was as grim-faced as Emily had ever seen him and they’d been through some pretty bad cases, though nothing of the magnitude of the Martin murders. He met her in the parking lot in front of the Public Safety building in downtown Cherrystone. His anxious countenance disturbed Emily to such a degree, she didn’t turn off the ignition. The Accord idled. She pushed the button and the window slid down.

  “I wanted to catch you before you came inside. Didn’t want to have this conversation on the phone,” he said. “Can I get in?”

  Emily indicated all right with a quick dip of her head.

  “What is it, Kip?” She called him by his nickname, rather than the more formal “Sheriff” that she used around the office. This felt exceedingly personal. “Have you heard something about Jenna?”

  He shut the door and struggled to adjust the front seat to accommodate his six-foot, 200-plus-pound frame.

  “No. Let’s drive away from here.”

  Without speaking, she put the car in gear and it rolled from the lot to the main street.

  “Let’s go to the park and talk. And no, I haven’t heard anything about Jenna. But that’s what I want to talk about.”

  “You’re scaring me,” she said, her eyes switching from the road to Kip, then back again.

  “Don’t be scared. We’re just going to talk and we just can’t do it at the office. Too many people listening all around.”

  A spot under a willow that hung over the street like an archway. She parked and they walked over to a picnic table. A couple of preschoolers played nearby on a jungle gym, their mothers fixated on their every flip and twirl. A poodle was tethered to the slide. It barked sharply. It was a sunny morning and for a moment it seemed like any other day.

  But that was all about to change. Kip lit up a smoke and faced Emily, his big brown eyes full of concern.

  “Look,” he said, “I know this is awkward. But I need to know how you and Jenna were getting along.”

  Emily knew where he was going and she didn’t like it one bit.

  “How can you even say that to me? You know we got along. Are you trying to suggest that she ran away?”

  Kip narrowed his gaze. “That’s right. There really isn’t anything to suggest that she left against her will. You know that. She wasn’t abducted.”

  “We don’t know that. We don’t know anything for sure. And where is this coming from?” Emily stood up. She wanted to leave. It felt so insulting that her boss, her friend, a man that she trusted more than just about any other would sit there and utter such a cruel lie.

  “I talked to David. He said that Jenna wanted to come live with him. You’d argued about it. Isn’t that right?”

  The poodle got off his leash and started running through the park. One of the mothers was frantically chasing him, while calling over her shoulder for her daughter to stay put.

  The distraction was only momentary, and Emily’s anger was a volcano.

  “Goddamn that David! What an idiot! He thinks his backbiting comments against me are helpful in his daughter’s disappearance? What kind of a man would put his hate toward his ex-wife over the love of his own little girl?”

  “David called us. He talked to Jenna late last night. She called him. She’s fine. She’s—”

  It was a molten iron spike to her heart. “What? He talked to her? Why didn’t he call me? Where is she? What did she say to him?”

  Kip motioned for her to be seated. “Take a breath. One question at a time, all right?”

  Emily planted herself on the rough-hewn wooden bench, her heart pounding and sweat dampening her underarms. She was mad and relieved at the same time. Jenna was alive. She wasn’t Polly Klaas. Jenna Kenyon was alive!

  “Please,” Emily said, “tell me everything my daughter said.”

  Kip exhaled a stream of smoke. “David told us she called last night about midnight. Said she was calling from a pay phone—the caller ID indicated she used a calling card—I knew you would ask. She was a little shaken. She said she’d be home soon. She was helping a friend in trouble.”

  “What friend?”

  “She didn’t say. David pressed her for more details and she was pretty adamant that none would be coming. She did say one thing for you, though. ‘Tell mom, I’m doing the right thing.’”

  Emily flashed to the sheet metal sign that hung in her daughter’s bedroom. It was the same sign that she’d displayed when that room was hers. It was made to look like a NO PARKING sign and read:

  DO THE

  RIGHT THING

  —EVEN IF

  IT HURTS.

  “What else did she say?”

  Kip shook his head. “Nothing. That’s all. David said she was on the phone no more than a minute, if that long.”

  Distrust won over relief. “I don’t believe him. That bastard’s got her. My daughter is not a runaway.” She didn’t even care that Kip was right next to her and was going to hear intimate family business.

  She flipped open her cell phone and punched the code for David. It rang five times then the recording came on. Jenna must be with him. If she was with anyone else, if that ridiculous story about a mysterious phone call was true, then David would be standing by waiting for another call or even news from Emily in case she had received a similar call. He would pick up right away. Unless he knew where Jenna was—safely at his side.

  Wednesday, 7:45 P.M.

  What had happened at the Martin place on the Thursday before the tornado? It was after hours, but there was no going home. There was no reason to. Jenna was gone. The phone was forwarded. And there was the matter of the Martin murders. Emily Kenyon studied the Spokane coroner’s autopsy report after it arrived bundled into one of those cheap accordion files. She’d always had a strong stomach and barely winced at the photographs that accompanied such files. But in the case of Mark, Peg, and Donovan Martin, Emily fixed her attention on the coroner’s schematics—not the photos of their battered, bruised, and bloodied bodies. The schematics, the distillation of reality, were actually more telling. They were impersonal figures, no genitalia, no hair to suggest a woman or man’s body. Just delicate black lines in the shape of a human form on a plain white sheet of paper. There were three of them. Mark Martin’s wounds were the most severe. His limbs were absent from the schematics. An X drawn by the coroner indicated where he’d been shot—in the upper back, probably at relatively close range. Peg Martin was next. Her wounds were beyond comprehension but it was there in black and white. She’d been shot in the chest. There was extensive damage to her torso—postmortem, the coroner noted. Finally there was the youngest, victim, Donovan Martin. Like his dad, Donny had suffered a single gunshot to the back. A big black X marked the spot where the bullet had entered, another where it had exited his frame.

  Emily set each of the sheets of paper across her desk. Muzak filtered in from the hallway and footsteps came and went, but never once did she look up. So much of what is routinely learned about what happened to each victim was quite literally gone with the wind. The tornado had swept away any trace evidence—fibers, hairs, even shell casings that had been left behind by the killer.
Why had Mrs. Martin been found nude? Labs for the presence of semen came back negative. She hadn’t been sexually active that morning, and unless the killer had used a condom, she likely hadn’t been raped. The nudity was puzzling, however. Emily just couldn’t wrap her brain around what had taken place. Maybe she’d just gotten out of the shower? Or was in her robe? She’d been bound—the only one of the three. From what Emily knew, Peg had called the schools and Mark’s office with the urgent message to get home. Had the killer used Peg to lure Mark upstairs after he’d placed that call to Mark’s office? There was no way of knowing.

  But at least one person probably had an inkling, if not a hand in it. Nicholas Martin. And Emily had only two questions to ask him: Why had he done this? And what did her daughter have to do with any of it?

  Reluctantly Emily went home to the empty house on Orchard Avenue, full of memories, but missing the one spark of life that was her daughter.

  God, where is she?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Thursday, 8:42 A.M., Cherrystone, Washington

  When Marina Wilbur turned to greet Emily Kenyon, it was like seeing a ghost from an unsettled grave. The look of horror on the pretty detective’s face could not have been more disconcerting—and tragically obvious.

  “I’m sorry,” Marina said, standing to acknowledge Emily as she entered her office. “I guess I should have told your boss to warn you. Peg and I are . . .” She caught herself and the tears she had held in check since the ride from the Spokane airport began to rain down her cheeks. “Were,” she corrected herself as she fought to regain her shattered composure, “we were identical twins.”

  Emily, still caught off guard, set down her paperwork and lamely offered coffee. She was carrying her own from the coffee stand and felt awkward drinking in front of her.

  “It’s not bad for cop coffee,” Emily said, looking around for a tissue and hoping that Shali Patterson hadn’t used the last of them.

  Like her sister—just like her sister—Marina Wilbur was a thin and shapely woman with honey-blond hair and, given a much happier time, mischievous green eyes. Emily thought of the school carnival and how Peg had given a kid an extra cookie. Her green eyes literally twinkled. But Marina’s eyes weren’t all that mischievous now. They were wrought with worry, dread, and unimaginable sadness. She had flown from Dayton, Ohio, to face the worst possible scenario of any family—multiple murders at the hands of one of its own.

  And now, sitting in Emily Kenyon’s office, Marina was clearly losing her battle to maintain any semblance of control. She had started to sob softly. Maybe the first time, since Jenna’s vanishing, Emily realized that others were suffering, deeper, irrevocable losses.

  “I’m sorry, so very sorry,” Emily said. “It is almost impossible to come up with any words that provide comfort at a time like this. I know it from losing my own parents not long ago. I liked your sister very much. She was a wonderful woman. This must be so hard for you.”

  Marina nodded. “Thank you. I heard about your daughter, and I’m sorry for what you’re going through, too.”

  It was a kind gesture, but Emily found herself bristling slightly. Jenna is not dead like your sister and your family. Jenna is with her dad and will come home. But she said nothing.

  “I appreciate that. Thank you.” She lingered for a second, but there was nothing more to say. “Let’s talk about your sister and her family, all right?” She pushed the Kleenex box, toward Marina. “Do you need a moment?”

  Marina crumpled a tissue and blotted her face. Her resolve was clear. She was as ready as she could ever be. The bodies of her sister, her sister’s husband, and her youngest nephew were already in caskets, lined up for burial.

  “I’m okay. I mean, considering everything that has happened this week. Has it even been a week? It was such an unbelievable shock. First, the tornado—which we watched on the news. When we couldn’t reach Peg and Mark after the storm, we figured that the power and phone lines were damaged. We kept trying and trying, but never got through. I called Mark’s office and they said he’d missed a day of work, which was odd for him, but I still didn’t think . . .”

  “How could you? I mean, really, no one could have,” Emily said.

  “I told myself that on the way over here. But you know it will take a lot of soul searching to figure out if I could have prevented this.”

  The remark was startling. Emily set down her coffee. The woman across from her wasn’t there just to find out what happened to her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. She was there for another reason. She felt guilty.

  “How so?” Emily asked.

  “Mark,” she began, “had been troubled lately.” She caught herself and stopped. Her words had come out all wrong. “I mean not to the extent that he’d do this . . .” She paused, and finally said, “I don’t know.”

  Emily could feel her pulse race. “But you must know something,” she finally offered.

  Marina Wilbur looked out the window, across the parking lot of pickup trucks and late model cars. All needed a good wash. Cherrystone was not a wealthy town. She wondered why her sister would want to live in a place like Cherrystone anyway. She knew Peg loved Mark and always said that Cherrystone was “out of the way” and a “great place” to raise kids. What a crock that seemed now. She couldn’t think of the last time an entire family had been murdered in Dayton, a far larger city than Cherrystone could ever hope to be.

  “They were having trouble. Peg told me. Mark was upset about something. Work maybe, I’m not sure. That was the impression I got. She didn’t say so, but I’m her twin. We don’t need to spell out every little thing, you know. Peg said that he’d been under a lot of stress and it was causing trouble with the boys, both Donny and Nick.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “She was vague about it. Said that there was a lot of arguing going on between Mark and the boys, particularly Mark and Nick. I don’t like to pry and my sister’s pretty private—” She caught herself, leaving the present-tense reference to her sister to hang in the air for a beat, but neglected to amend her words. “There had been some kind of knock-down drag-out, I guess, a couple weeks ago.”

  “No clue about what it was about?”

  Marina reached for another tissue. The first one had been wadded to the size of a peach pit. She looked around for a trash container, but when she didn’t see one, set the paper ball on the corner of the desk.

  “This is very upsetting. And very private. But I guess I can tell you, I mean my sister’s not going to get mad at me, you know.” Her tears returned. “I think it had something to do with Nick’s adoption.”

  “I didn’t know until recently that he was adopted,” the detective said.

  “Of course not. Why would anyone need to know? He was their son in every way.”

  “Was Donny adopted, too?”

  Marina dismissed the question with the shake of her head. “Isn’t that always the way? They’d tried having one of their own for ten years—fertility clinics, counseling, you name it, they did it. They adopted Nick. They were so happy with a son to love. And bam, a couple years later, Marina calls up and tells me she’s pregnant. On their own. No help from anyone. Donovan, Peg always said, was . . .” Her words stumbled from her lips, “was their miracle baby.”

  Emily opened her notebook and started writing, all the while keeping her eyes riveted to Marina Wilbur and her sodden tissue. She was unsure what this information meant for the Martin case, and what, if anything it meant for the subject that had most of her attention—her missing daughter.

  She was going to get in touch with David and demand to talk to her daughter. Just what kind of relationship had she had with Nick anyway? Could she get in touch with him? Bring him in? Did David realize how vulnerable she was? He had to be warned that Jenna might be mixed up in something very, very dangerous.

  Thursday morning, exact time unknown

  The shack had been silent for almost two hours. Jenna Kenyon had sat quietl
y, alone in the shadowy building. Wind scraped the roofline and she pulled the cords on her hooded pale blue sweatshirt taut. How much longer would he be gone? She’d tried the doorknob, but it had been locked from the outside. The windows were too high up, and ultimately too small, even if she’d been able to hoist herself up there somehow. Her knee still throbbed. But more than pain, she felt a strange kind of uneasiness. It was fear. It was justified. She was alone in a strange place. Just waiting. Just wondering.

  She heard the doorknob twist and she spun around; a bolt of light from the outside blasted its way inside. The silhouette of a figure stood in the doorway, stark and foreboding. Jenna put her hand to her mouth to muffle her involuntary cry.

  “Sorry it took so long,” he said, “but I had a hard time getting that beater going.”

  Nick Martin held a bag of food and a newspaper in one hand. He was pale and sweaty, but he tried to suck up enough courage so that he could at least appear to be calm. Jenna deserved that consideration. He didn’t want her scared any more than she already was. Fear breeds like a virus in a small, confined space.

  Jenna got up to meet him. “I don’t like being left here alone,” she said, taking the bag of food. “I won’t be left alone like that again. Trapped like an animal.” She indicated the lock on the door.

  “I had to do that,” he said. “I didn’t want anyone else finding you.”

  Jenna fished through the paper bag, found an apple fritter, and started eating. Nick took the other. He unrolled the paper and set it on the ratty sofa.

  “Made the paper,” he said. He indicated the front page of the Warwick Times. The town was about ten miles from Cherrystone. A headline ran just above the fold:

  BOY MISSING AFTER FAMILY MURDERED

  The article was accompanied by a color photo of the Martins’ flattened house—though it would be difficult for anyone to comprehend that the debris scattered on the image had once been a house. Jenna’s eyes widened. It looked like it had been bulldozed. A few telltale pieces that indicated that the material had once been fashioned into a home, but not much. She started reading and almost at once, her mother’s name jumped off the page. The story said that Emily Kenyon had gone out to the residence after the tornado, only to find that three family members had been shot and the fourth, Nick Martin, was nowhere to be found.