“You fainted?” Beth sat up straighter. “And you tell me not to barf at a crime—”
“Not now, Beth.”
Chief Kus stood. “I’ll get my crime-scene folks back over here and have them recheck the room and get on those notes.” He headed for the door, then turned and looked at me. “See you at the task force meeting tomorrow.” He left.
I followed him out of the office with Beth trailing behind, making sure the access doors locked behind us. We headed for our room.
“That is one good-looking man,” Beth said.
“Really? I didn’t notice.”
The next morning Beth and I loaded up and headed to the task force meeting. Beth would explore Lapwai with Winston until I called.
Although I arrived early at the police department, I was the last one to enter the conference room. One wall had a map pinned to it, a white board took up another wall, and 8 x 10 photos of the crime scene finished off the third side.
The haggard faces around me answered the question of whether they’d found the little girl.
No one looked overjoyed at my being there.
Each member took turns reporting their progress. I gave my verbal report, then turned in the written printout on the interview and how the letters were found at Sinopa’s office.
The elderly woman next to me took my materials. “Can you e-mail this all to me so I can enter it into the case file?” She handed me a card.
I nodded.
She looked around the table. “Chief Kus had me do a check to see if there were any similar cases anywhere around here. I found nothing.”
“Excuse me, but did you go back far enough?”
“What do you mean by far enough? I was very thorough.” Her voice was frosty.
“I’m sorry.” I gave her an apologetic smile. “I didn’t mean to imply—”
“I went back over twenty-five years.”
“Well then.” I looked around the table. All eyes were on me. “You should have found a double homicide involving a hatchet in Kamiah. Twenty-three years ago. June twelfth. And there was a four-year-old boy involved.”
She sniffed, glanced at the chief, then typed on her computer for a few moments. After reading the results, she turned the screen toward me.
The screen showed types of crime, location, and the year. In that particular year, only a single homicide-suicide appeared. A husband shot his wife, then himself.
My mouth dried. I stared at the results until she turned the computer toward herself.
“Did you have something to report, Gwen?” Chief Kus asked me.
My ears buzzed. The room seemed overly bright. I am not going to faint. “Nothing to report. I’ll . . I’ll need to do some investigating.”
The meeting continued.
I folded my hands and pretended to listen. What is going on? Did I mistake the year? The location? I didn’t want any further attention from the task force. I’d have Beth look it up.
The meeting ended and I headed for the door. Chief Kus stopped me. “Something’s going on with you. Did you have some information to share? Something you’re holding back?”
I chewed my lip. “I’m . . . not sure. Something’s not right, but I need more . . . research. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything.”
“Please do.”
Beth answered the phone promptly and picked me up in her car. Winston puffed in my hair from the back seat. “What’s the matter?”
“I think I’m losing it.”
“I doubt that. What happened in there?”
“Remember I asked you to look into the murder of my sorta-mom, Holly, and her son?”
Beth glanced at me and nodded. “I haven’t had time to start on that, but I’ll get right on it. And, to remind you, you said you’d explain what you meant by ‘sorta-mom.’”
“I will, but I have something more pressing. I may be mistaken about the year of the murders. Or possibly the location.”
“Okay.”
“If there’s any way possible, see what you can find out about Holly herself.”
“Last name?” Beth asked.
“She changed it a lot, but I remember what her name was from when I first knew her because I thought her name sounded like Christmas. Holly Green. Maybe with an e at the end.”
“Okay.”
“Her son was named Jacob. He’d be about nine years younger than me. And I think . . . maybe part Native American.”
“Husband?”
“No. Holly never married.”
“So. Research a Holly Green, maybe with an e, unmarried, son Jacob, both murdered somewhere around North Central Idaho between twenty and twenty-five years ago. When I do all that, will you tell me what on earth is going on?”
“Yeah.”
The morning air was fragrant with all the blooming trees and bushes in well-tended yards. We passed by downtown Lewiston, hugging the banks of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers, and climbed up a bluff where the bulk of the population resided. Beth drove, weaving by a number of stately older homes on our way to my witness, Andi Tubbs. Up ahead, a driveway looked familiar. “Beth, slow down.”
“I thought you said she lives—”
“Stop the car!”
She slammed on the brakes, sending Winston sliding off the rear seat. “What’s wrong?”
“That house.” A soaring Victorian home rested behind a row of older trees. A discreet red-and-white sign noted this was the Two Rivers Bed-and-Breakfast.
“Have you stayed there before?” Beth asked.
“No. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never been to this part of Lewiston before. But I’ve dreamed about that house.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“YOU’VE NEVER MENTIONED DREAMING ABOUT AN OLD HOUSE.” Beth pulled the car next to the curb and put it into park.
“It’s been years, but I used to have this strange dream . . .” My stomach fluttered. “It’s nothing. I probably saw a photo of it somewhere.” I checked my watch. “Let’s go. I don’t want to be late.”
Beth stared at me a moment longer, then shifted into drive. We didn’t speak until we reached Andi Tubbs’s house, a modest ranch. “I’ll call you when I’m about done. Okay? Find us a good place to stay.” Giving Winston a quick scratch, I pulled my forensic kit from the back seat and headed for the house.
An older woman with short gray hair, thick glasses, and porcelain skin answered the door. “Are you the artist?”
“Yes. Gwen Marcey. Call me Gwen.” I offered my hand and she took it.
“I’m Andi.” She directed me to her dining room and a round antique oak table. “I thought you might need a good surface.”
“How thoughtful of you.” While I pulled my drawing materials from the case, Andi brought me a steaming mug of coffee. I elevated her to my favorite witness of all time. “I understand you were checking on a neighbor when you saw someone at the Sinopa home.”
“Yes. I was late, about eight in the evening on Monday, when I saw a man standing on the porch. He rang the bell, then glanced at me.”
“What were the lighting conditions?”
“A porch light was on and I could see him pretty well.”
I tried not to stare at her thick lenses. “What was your overall impression of him?”
“I guess I’d say that he was young and out of place.”
“Young?”
“Twenties.”
“Why out of place?”
Andi fiddled with her coffee cup. “Lapwai is a small, close community made up of mostly Nez Perce. This guy was white and . . . I don’t know, just looked wrong.”
“How did he make you feel?”
“Uneasy.”
Glancing down at my interview form, I marked the boxes on age, race, and sex. As much as possible, I wanted her to do the talking during the interview. “Okay, let’s start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out, even if you think it’s unimportant.”
“Like I said, it was late to be checking on someon
e, and as I hurried up the walk, I saw the man. He had brown hair and wore a sweatshirt and jeans.”
I wrote down her scanty description. “You mentioned he rang the doorbell. Which hand did he use?”
She thought for a moment. “Left.”
“What about his right hand?”
“It was . . . He had a small duffel bag! I just remembered.”
“Tell me about that.”
She took a sip of coffee. “Black, or dark colored. That’s why I didn’t really pay attention. About this big.” She held her hands about eighteen inches apart.
I wrote as fast as I could. “Let’s back up even more. You parked where?”
“On the street, like always. I grabbed my bag from the seat beside me, then got out of the car and hurried up to the house.” Her eyes grew wide. “No cars.”
I thought of all the vehicles I’d seen in the small community. “No cars?”
She grinned. “I mean, no cars or trucks that I wasn’t familiar with. There were the standard three to five cars per house. Maybe that’s what made me uneasy. I must have wondered where this guy came from.”
After a bit more conversation, it was clear she had nothing more to offer in terms of verbal descriptions. I handed her my facial-identification book. “Go through this book and look for anyone that reminds you of the man you saw. I very much doubt he’d be in here, so you’re not looking for him. Once we find similar faces, I’ll put them together and you’ll make changes to bring the sketch as close to your memory as possible. It won’t end up being a portrait, just a likeness. At the very worst, it will help us to eliminate anyone not similar. Okay?”
She took the book and started paging through. I tugged out a piece of bristol paper and drew my facial grid. Unfortunately my “cheat ruler” now sat at the bottom of the Clearwater River. The ruler made it easy to lay out the face. Without it, I’d have to measure, but fortunately the average Caucasian male face was easy to put together. The width of the eye was the same as the width between the eyes. Depending on the head shape, the width of the eye is usually the distance from the outside corner of the eye to the outside of the face. The nose is about an eye and a half long, and the mouth is located one-third of the distance between the nose and chin.
As Andi selected each feature, I jotted the number on the interview form. My heart sank at the selections. Average. Average. Average. I mentally groaned. Give me bulging red eyes, eyebrows long enough to braid, skin pocked like the moon’s surface. Anything but average.
The drawing developed swiftly, with Andi making few changes. That was never good. I needed a picky witness, someone who made me use the eraser more than my pencil. Few changes meant one of three things—the witness was lying, I was a brilliant artist, or the witness didn’t see or remember the face that well. In this case I doubted the first two.
Forty-five minutes later, the drawing was complete. Average. Andi was thrilled with the likeness, rating it a 9.5 on a 1-to-10 scale. I gave Beth a quick call to pick me up, then collected the clutter of art materials that covered the tabletop. “Thank you again, Andi. You’ve been a great help.”
“I just keep thinking about that poor little girl. Any word?”
“Not that I know of.” We moved toward the door.
“I can’t help but think about another case like this.”
My mouth suddenly dried. “Oh?”
“A couple of years ago I was living in The Dalles, Oregon. A father and mother were killed, I think, and a child, a little girl, was missing or taken.”
“Oh really?” I licked my lips. “Do you remember if anyone was ever arrested or the child recovered?”
“I don’t. I moved here shortly after.”
A car horn beeped.
“That’s my ride.” I hoped my hand wasn’t quivering as I shook hands with Andi. “Here’s my card. Call me if you think of anything else.”
Trying hard not to run, I made it to Beth’s SUV, slamming the door too hard. From the back seat, Winston greeted me by sticking his muzzle in my hair and blowing nose-kisses.
“Are you all right?” Beth asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I have.”
CHAPTER NINE
BETH DROVE, SENDING ME WORRIED GLANCES EVERY few moments. “Can I ask—”
“Not just yet. Did you find a place to stay?”
We pulled up in front of the Two Rivers Bed-and-Breakfast. “Ta-da!”
“What are we doing here?”
“I booked us a couple of rooms. Since you’re already dreaming about this place, you might as well stay here.” She turned into a short driveway that ended in a small paved parking lot. “I hope you don’t mind. I’ve already unpacked.”
Slowly I got out of the car and stared up at the impressive Victorian entrance. “This doesn’t look like a place that would be dog friendly.”
“They’re not. Or they weren’t. The manager, a nice guy named Eric, originally said no, but I explained you were working on the homicide and missing child and guess what?”
“What?”
“No, you have to guess.”
I would have thrown a pencil at her head, but I was currently unarmed. “He said he’d let us stay here with Winston.”
Beth looked down and frowned. “You guessed.”
“You already said you’d booked a room and unpacked.” I opened the back door and let Winston out.
“So I did. So I did. I thought a bed-and-breakfast would redintegrate you.”
“That sounds painful.” Winston thoughtfully inspected a nearby tree before watering it.
“Word of the day. It means ‘make whole’ or ‘renew.’ I’m trying to keep your mind sharp.”
“I keep my pencils sharp.”
Beth shook her head. “That’s not the same thing.”
“You’re not an artist.”
“Anyway.” She pulled her purse from the car and locked the doors. “There’s more. He gave us a discount on the rooms and then threw in a meeting area for free!”
“Why?”
“He wanted to help, and he said he couldn’t get away from work to help look for Beatrice. Anyway, you know the saying about looking a gift horse in the mouth and all. Come on.” I followed her up a set of stairs leading to a wide porch with wicker furniture on my right. The unlocked door led to a hall with an open door on one side and stairs going down on the other. A solidly built man in his twenties with thick, unruly light-brown hair stepped out.
“You must be Mrs. Marcey.” He eyed my dog. “I’m Eric Winchester.”
I recognized the look on his face. He was afraid of dogs. Or at least dogs the size of Shetland ponies. “Thank you for letting us stay here.” I tightened Winston’s leash so he wouldn’t give his usual greeting of plowing his head between Eric’s legs. “You’re the . . . owner of this place?”
Eric laughed. “No, not at all. I moved from Minneapolis and started working here about, oh, ten years ago. Worked my way up to manager. Lila also works here. You’ll meet her later. Let me show you to your rooms.” We traipsed behind him across a striking parlor that raised goose pimples up my spine. Antique chairs, tables, and sofas formed conversation areas. The huge fireplace mantel of deeply carved, dark wood was just as I remembered it.
I must have been here before.
I even knew what was ahead. Through the double doors would be a grand hallway with a massive stairway leading up. The carpet would be a floral pattern on a black background. Neither Eric nor Beth noticed me slowing down.
Eric pointed left. “Coffee and tea over there.” He reached the double doors, passed through, and waved his hand. “This is actually—”
“The front entrance,” I finished for him.
“Ah, yes,” Eric said. They both turned and stared at me a moment before moving on. Another set of double doors opened to a comfortable game room with a big-screen television, microwave, small refrigerator, and table in the center. The room was smaller than I remembered and had been remod
eled, but I knew it.
“You can use this area for your, what would you call it? Investigations? Strategy room? Your bedrooms are on either side, and these doors lock.” He pointed. “If you enter and leave through the front doors, most of the other guests won’t even know you’re here with a dog, unless they see him outside.”
“Thank you,” I said through stiff lips. “I’m sure we’ll be very comfortable.”
“Well then, breakfast between seven thirty and nine thirty. Go down the stairs over there.” He backed out, closing the doors behind him.
“You’re acting very strange.” Beth took Winston’s leash from my freezing hand. “I went ahead and took the room on the right. They are almost the same, but the one on the right is—”
“Smaller. And overlooks a fountain with three fish, no, make that dolphins, in the center.” I slowly turned in the center of the room, staring at each item of furniture. The only piece I recognized was a Victorian mahogany rolltop desk. “BA plus FP,” I said. I got on my hands and knees and crawled under the desk, then lay on my back. Winston rose, then wandered over and stood near my feet.
“Okay, Gwen, you are really scaring me now.” Beth’s voice quivered. “Even your dog is concerned.”
“Come here.”
Beth bent down and peeked at me.
“No. Lay here beside me.”
She opened her mouth to say something, then joined me on the floor. “Gwen, if we need to call someone—”
“Look.” I pointed up.
She looked in the direction I pointed. Written in smudged white were the letters BA plus FP with a heart drawn around them.
CHAPTER TEN
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND.” BETH CRAWLED FROM UNDER the desk and sat on the mint-green and peach floral-patterned sofa. Winston left my side and promptly jumped up and joined her. “No, Winston, down.” The dog slunk from the sofa and lay on the floor, staring at me to be sure I knew he felt abused.
I sat up and crossed my legs. “Before I tell you, if you don’t mind, would you do some additional research for me?”
“You know I will. I wasn’t a researcher for Microsoft for nothing.” She stood, disappeared into her room, then returned with a computer case and leather notebook. After opening the notebook and finding a pen, she looked up at me. “I’ve already started working on Holly Green, maybe with an e, not married as of the time you left, Jacob, murders in North Central Idaho roughly twenty to twenty-five years ago. This is so interesting! Is the new research about you not being here before, but for some reason you were? Does it have anything to do with the missing child? I do have a—”
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