Forgotten Bones

by Vickie McKeehan

  “Yeah, well, the Rez hasn’t had the station that long. But hey, we know how to use it to its full potential. Lower-income families might not have Internet like the rest of the civilized world, but they do keep their radios on most of the time. And they step up when their community needs help. It didn’t do any good, though. She was gone. And I knew Lily wouldn’t have taken off on her own. That kid was special. You know? She had big plans once she got that laptop.”

  Josh frowned. “How so? Did she plan to meet people online?”

  “Not like that, no. She wasn’t that kind of kid. She wanted that laptop to start her own website. She wanted to sell her handmade craft items online. She made these little ceramic pots for cactus. Hell, she sold four to my wife and another three to my sister-in-law. Lily was a go-getter. And she loved her ceramics class.”

  They could see the emotion come into Daryl’s eyes. The man swallowed hard fighting back tears before going on. But he pushed back the plate on his pizza. “I’m not hungry anymore. If I ever find the lowlife son of a bitch that took that sweet kid, I’ll…wring his…”

  Skye put a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. we feel exactly the same way. Eat your pizza. Did you find any trace of her at all? The police report mentions snow on the ground that night. Were the dogs able to pick up a scent at all?”

  “That’s the weird thing. The dogs left her porch and stopped at the corner, maybe four houses down the street. No matter how many track dogs we used, each dog did the very same thing, stopped at that same corner.”

  “Like she got into a car?” Josh prompted.

  “Yeah. Like someone might’ve been waiting to give her a ride. But that didn’t make any sense. It was cold that night, yeah, but she was only going two streets over. Why would she need a ride for that short distance? And she wouldn’t have gotten into the car with just anybody. She knew better. I’d told her that. It had to be somebody she recognized. It had to be.”

  Skye chewed her lip. “Did Lily learn ceramics from the community center?”

  “Yeah. All the kids sign up for classes of one kind or another. They offer how-to painting, crafts of all kinds, exercise, yoga, that type of thing. My own kids go there to take karate classes.”

  Daryl’s eyes widened. “You think there could be a connection?”

  “This entire Reservation is a connection. Whoever is doing this knows this place inside and out?”

  “But Grayhawk said you think it’s a White guy?”

  “I do. Which should really narrow the field.”

  After visiting with a few more of Lily’s clients, Skye decided they were done. “This is getting us nowhere. We’re spinning our wheels on the Rez. It’s time to move on to the clients she had elsewhere.”

  “Let’s get a feel for Leo’s outside parameter. We’ll use GPS in a grid, take it one name at a time. How many do we have?

  “Lily had nine who lived around town. Not knowing the area very well, I’m not sure which ones are located in the rural part of the County. I say we check out all of them.”

  Josh punched the gas. “The sooner we start, the better.”

  ****

  After making a quick stop at a coffee shop for a caffeine boost, they made the rounds talking to people with names like Radford Thorpe, an artist who specialized in oil landscapes and worked out of a studio at his farmhouse on the southwest side of town.

  The Thorpe home was a Four Gables style that sat on a hill overlooking the valley with lots of trees in the back. When Josh first drove up to the driveway, it occurred to Skye how remote the place was. “If Lily was targeted, why not take her from here? The perp could’ve taken all the time he needed to get somewhere else. Why didn’t he grab her out here instead of mere feet from her own doorstep?”

  “Maybe he wanted to make a statement.”

  “Which is…? I don’t get this guy, Josh. He has a perfect venue where no one would’ve even heard Lily scream except maybe the kids asleep in the bedroom. How old did the coffee shop owner say the kids were?”

  “The boy’s eight now and the girl five, which would’ve made them four and probably under two when Lily came out here to sit. So, the kids would’ve most likely been too little. But you’re right. Why didn’t he nab her from right here?”

  “The guy’s MO doesn’t make any sense.” Skye studied the layout of the land, the ridgeline, the way the trees hid the house. That’s when she spotted a man standing in a patch of his backyard, working the ground with a hoe. “That must be Thorpe. He’s older than I thought.”

  This afternoon a balding Radford Thorpe worked in his garden hoeing weeds while his kids ran back and forth between the swings and a sandbox.

  They approached him from the side angle so he could see them walking up.

  “Reminds me of our own garden back home,” Josh remarked to break the ice. After introducing themselves, he told the man why they were there.

  Leaning on his hoe, Thorpe stopped to wipe the sweat from his brow and looked over at his own children, laughing and playing. “My family’s been around this town for decades. All these missing girls…nothing like that’s ever happened here before. It’s unsettling.”

  “Definitely,” Skye said in agreement. “We thought you might be able to tell us something about Lily.”

  “She was a jewel, a treasure. The first time she babysat for us, we thought we’d hit the mother lode of babysitters. She was that good.”

  “This is quite a distance from the Reservation, though,” Skye noted. “Couldn’t you have found another sitter much closer to home, say right here in your own neighborhood?”

  “Nope. We preferred Lily. Our kids adored her. She worked with my little girl on getting her to talk, say her first words. And with my son, who was four at the time, Lily worked puzzles with him. She helped him put together his Lego sets. Even now, he’s a whiz at putting them together in record time. He won the local Lego building competition two years in a row. He does all that because Lily showed him how. She was a natural with kids. Broke our hearts when she went missing. Four years is a long time for the Redferns to wonder what happened to her. Are you here to give them answers?”

  “We’re trying,” Josh stated. “Who recommended you to Lily? How did you come by her name?”

  “Let’s see, I think it was Susan Jaynes who first mentioned Lily to my wife one afternoon after church service. Yeah, that’s it. I remember now because I was talking to Gavin about old man Schiller selling his farmland to a developer who planned to build ugly-looking apartments on the land.”

  “Who’s Gavin?” Josh wanted to know.

  “Gavin Jaynes, Susan’s husband. Anyway, Susan kept going on and on about how great Lily was with her kids. Her raving about a sitter definitely piqued our interest.”

  “How so? Why was that unusual?”

  Thorpe found the question amusing. “Well, we needed a good sitter. But obviously, you haven’t met Susan yet. She’s one of those fussy types where everything has to be just so, or she freaks out a bit. The table has to be perfect, the food, the flowers. Susan’s a perfectionist.”

  Yeah, Skye couldn’t wait to talk to Susan. But for now, she stuck to the script. “And did Lily ever mention to you or your wife about any other family that gave her concerns? Someone she expressed a fear of, someone she didn’t want to babysit for a second or a third time?”

  Thorpe looked shocked. “You’re suggesting the person who took her was someone she knew, a man, living right here in the community, all this time? Well, that’s disturbing.”

  “But did she?” Skye pushed. “Did Lily ever voice those kinds of worries about any other family she worked for?”

  “Not that I can remember. Let me get my wife, though. Carla and Lily talked a lot.” Thorpe went to the back stoop and called out to his wife.

  A much younger woman—a smartly dressed blonde wearing a wrap summer dress and sandals— appeared in the doorway. She came out on the lawn to wave them toward the back porch.

  “I’
m Carla. Come on in. I’ll fix us some lemonade. The kids will want a snack soon anyway. I made macaroons yesterday and I still have some. Used fresh coconut in the recipe. You’re here about Lily?”

  “They think it was someone she knew,” Radford added.

  That news made the blonde stumble slightly as she went into the kitchen. “I’m not surprised. I never thought for a minute the person taking all these girls was a stranger who decides to pick on our community. I’ve always said it has to be a local.”

  “Anyone you’d like to tell us about?” Skye proffered. “Anyone Lily mentioned that she didn’t like being around?”

  Carla looked uncomfortable about being put on the spot. “Not really, no. But Lily did confide in me about an incident that happened at the library not too long before she disappeared. She was there to do a book report—I forget about what—when this man approached her.”

  Skye’s pulse picked up. “When was this?”

  “End of the semester, so December. It seems this guy already knew about her wanting a laptop. Anyway, she said he offered her one at cost, said he got them from his brother who worked at a box store and could get a discount.”

  Josh shifted his feet to lean against the counter. “But, it sounds like Lily didn’t jump on the offer.”

  “No, she didn’t. There had to be a reason for that because she really wanted one. I wish I could remember the entire conversation. But it’s been too long. I got the impression that he gave her the creeps or something. You know, we didn’t just hire Lily to sit for the kids when we went out. Her mom often dropped her off to stay for the weekend, especially in the summer. She’d help with the kids, do anything with them to keep them occupied. This is when I had a toddler and a baby in diapers and needed someone to help me out while Radford worked down in Boise on that mural that took months to finish.” She pivoted toward her husband. “You remember the one?”

  “The art center project,” Radford supplied. “I worked on it during my spare time the summer before Lily went missing, which meant I was gone Saturdays and Sundays.”

  “Having Lily here was a godsend. I liked that I wasn’t out here alone,” Carla went on. “Lily was awesome. I never had to stay after her to get anything done. She seemed so young and so happy, so full of life…and then…she was like a little sister to me.”

  “Do you have any idea what this guy looked like? How old? Young? Middle-aged?”

  Carla shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t. I wish I could be more help. Do you think…do you think she’s still alive?”

  “We really can’t discuss things like that,” Josh said, handing off an Artemis Foundation business card. “If you think of anything else that might point us in a certain direction, call. We’ll be here for the summer.”

  They followed Radford back outside, where the man stopped them before they headed to the van. “We look at our kids and realize how lucky we are. A man who could take a young girl like Lily has to be nothing short of a monster. You know, Lily used to help me out here in the garden.” He pointed to a statue of an angel. “My kids and I put that up the first summer Lily wasn’t around. You see, gardening, like my paintings, is a passion of mine. But for the longest time after Carla and I worked out here, it didn’t seem the same.” He stopped to admire the newly sprouted green beans beginning to pop out of the ground. “Lily used to say she wanted a garden of her own. Adding the angel was the least we could do.”

  Back in the van, Skye shifted in her seat. “Was that slightly creepy to you? Or should I be touched that the Thorpes felt so sad about Lily that they put up a statue in her honor?”

  “I’m still evaluating that. Could be they really missed her. On the other hand, it did seem odd. What was Lily to them other than a babysitter slash weekend nanny they could use to fluff off chores? Was she something else?”

  “I’d like to get a look inside Radford’s art studio and see if there are any drawings of Lily in there.”

  Josh cut his eyes to meet hers. “I could’ve gone the rest of the afternoon without having that idea in my head.”

  Because Thorpe had mentioned Susan Jaynes, they jumped that name to the top of their list and made it their next stop.

  The Jaynes home was down the road, another farmhouse at the end of a rural lane, the kind of place that came with a pond and acres of extra fields.

  “Another good spot for an abduction,” Josh noted when he pulled up the road to the house.

  “Why does that name Jaynes sound so familiar?” Skye pondered as she scanned the property, noting the gentle slopes of freshly plowed earth and a tractor near one of the outbuildings. It looked like a working farm where the owners grew potatoes. Idaho russet. The house was a wood frame built during the popularity of the American Foursquare design, probably sometime in the late 1930s. Which made it even older than the Thorpe place.

  Susan turned out to be a bit of a Nervous Nellie. Her house, or what they saw of it, was spotless, like something out of a Stepford Wives movie where everything had its proper place. Even though the woman had two kids, Susan seemed to have figured out a way to keep the large open area from living room to dining room clutter-free of toys and the usual junk that accumulated with normal everyday activities. But the woman seemed friendly enough, inviting them inside to chat, even offering them a glass of tea.

  “My husband’s at work.”

  Unfazed, Josh followed Susan inside. “That’s okay. We’ll just talk to you then. It won’t take long.”

  Skye politely declined anything to drink, hoping to focus on the interview, but Josh decided the best way to get someone like Susan to settle down and talk to them was to sit at the kitchen table. Friendlier.

  Which is why he gravitated to a sunny spot next to a window and plopped down. “We just came from the Thorpe place. Radford and Carla said you were the one who recommended Lily Redfern to them.”

  Flitting from the refrigerator to the counter, Susan seemed baffled. “I did? Well, if that’s what they said, then I guess so. It’s been so long since we’ve needed a sitter. We don’t go out much these days. And the kids are older.”

  “But, you do remember her?” Skye wanted to know, annoyed that Josh’s way kept Susan busy. Most of the time the woman had her back to them, preventing Skye from looking into Susan’s eyes. “You did have Lily watch your kids, right?”

  “Probably, a time or two. The kids were little then, so if we ever went out socially, we’d use a sitter like every other couple. I think we called her up when we went out for a movie once and then again for my husband’s birthday when a bunch of us got together for a couple’s night out to celebrate. Oh, and we might’ve used her when my sister got married. Yes, I think we did then. It was Lily who watched the kids for us the entire day of the wedding. She seemed very responsible. Afterward, that’s when I must’ve mentioned what a good job she did to Carla.”

  They drank a glass of tea they didn’t want, thanked the woman and left.

  “Next time,” Skye grumbled as soon as she reached the car. “Try to have the person at least sit down with us and answer the questions. Susan was darting back and forth so much I felt like I was at a penny arcade shooting gallery, unable to get a bead on whether she was telling the truth.”

  “Okay. Okay. I get the hint. But did she say anything valuable?”

  “No, that’s just it, she didn’t say much of anything about anything.”

  They stuck to Leo’s parameter, which took them further into the countryside but well within the five-mile range where the killer might reside.

  The next couple on the list was Mark and Lydia Osborne, another family with two kids. In fact, every couple they’d met so far had two kids. The fact was either a weird coincidence or just plain surreal.

  The Osborne house was newer than the others, probably built when Reagan was in office. It was located near the lake and had a boat dock in back.

  It reminded Josh too much of Elias Pope’s setup. “Maybe Osborne is our guy. Maybe he disposed of
the bodies in the water, tied them down with cinder blocks, and that’s why the bodies were never found.”

  Skye made a face. “Always keep an open mind, right?”

  Like Gavin Jaynes, Lydia’s husband Mark was at work. And the wife couldn’t offer up much in the way of information, only to say that she did like Lily, had no complaints about the girl, but wasn’t a regular enough client to know her well.

  “Lily sat for us twice, I think. Once when we went to a Christmas party and the next week for New Year’s Eve. I remember she was a sweet girl. Did they ever find out what happened to her?”

  Skye frowned. “That’s why we’re here to see if you know anything about her disappearance.”

  “Me? Why no. Why would I?”

  The woman’s disinterest irritated Skye. “What about your husband Mark? Should we make a point to come back later and talk to him?”

  Lydia finally got the hint and took the conversation more serious. “I’m the one who books the sitters. My husband has nothing to do with that. He barely said two words to Lily when she was here.”

  “Are you sure?” Josh asked. “It has been more than four years since she went missing.”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Lydia snapped. “For all I know, the girl could’ve ran off. Living on the Reservation, what future do some of those kids have? Not much I can tell you that. Those types of kids get into trouble all the time around here and don’t know how to get out of it.”

  “What type of kids would that be, Mrs. Osborne? Indian kids?”

  “Well, yeah. They want off the Reservation so badly they’ll resort to anything. We thought we were doing the girl a favor just by giving her something to do and keeping her off the streets.”

  “Is that right? And how did you first learn about ‘the girl’?”

  Unfazed with the remark, Lydia went on, “Through the grapevine, I’m sure. I’m fairly certain it was Marion Gatwick who gave me the girl’s number.”

  Marion Gatwick also lived off one of the County roads in an older house. But hers needed a coat of paint and some fixing up. Marion was only slightly more forthcoming with her answers than the others. Yes, she remembered Lily. Yes, she recommended the girl to others. Yes, she was sorry something bad had happened to her but had nothing to add about her disappearance.