Forgotten Bones

by Vickie McKeehan

  Skye tilted her head. “Okay, stop it. I’m aware you guys are upset with me. I get it. But please put your anger aside and keep the focus on the asshole who’s killing little girls instead of me.”

  “You got it,” Harry said with a grin. “I’m here to serve.”

  ****

  While Josh and Harry went through the CCTV from the hotel, Leo discovered a traffic cam located out on the Interstate at the exit used to get to the lodge. “The guy might’ve slipped up this time. Because this intersection takes you right past the front of the hotel. Last night the traffic was light, not many cars at all coming and going. There’s only a handful that took that route after midnight. I think this is footage of the guy’s vehicle.”

  Leo tapped the keys to enhance the image of a pickup truck. “That’s as good as I can get it, though. License plate is too fuzzy due to the poor quality of the camera.”

  “All I see is a dark blue…Toyota Tacoma…maybe.”

  “Late-model, yeah. Josh sent me a copy of the CCTV from the hotel entrance. Our guy isn’t on the CCTV, which means he didn’t come through the main gate, probably parked away from the cameras this time and snuck in through any one of several spots, making sure he wasn’t picked up by the surveillance. But that vehicle is the only one at that intersection that fits the timeframe.”

  “Print off the image, something I can show around to the people on Lily’s client list. Maybe someone will recognize it. In the meantime, see if any of those same people own a Tacoma.”

  “Will do.”

  Harry walked in from his bedroom and handed off a piece of paper. “I got results, but you’re not gonna like what I got. How engrained are you in the cop theory?”

  Skye lifted a shoulder. “How engrained should I be?”

  “Probably a lot more after you read that report. Three guys on your list are cops. They work together at the sheriff’s department. Gavin Jaynes, Mark Osborne, and Trace Merrick.”

  “You’re kidding. Josh and I talked to Merrick yesterday, and he never once mentioned he was a cop.”

  “Maybe that has something to do with him getting bounced from the force for inappropriate contact with a suspect, a seventeen-year-old girl from the Reservation.”

  “Whoa. How long ago did that happen?”

  “Four months. The sheriff’s union has been trying to get him reinstated. His legal woes are mounting, though, along with personal issues. It seems his marriage is in trouble due to the contact with the female suspect he arrested for shoplifting. Her name’s Loreen Kicking Bear. And she filed a complaint against him for sexual assault, got it to stick, too.”

  “Good for Loreen.”

  “Yeah. And she’s not backing down in her story. Loreen claims she never shoplifted anything, and that Merrick had no reason to hassle her in the first place. Add to all that, the couple has financial problems out the ying-yang. But there’s something else, something you guys missed yesterday. One of Lily’s regular clients was left off that list, and it was a place she frequented far more often than she did the Thorpe place.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “No idea. Slipped through the uncle’s memory bank maybe. Who knows? But Judy was on top of it. She put in a call to Lily’s uncle yesterday after passing along the list to you and Josh just to verify the names Felix had given her, maybe jog the uncle’s memory a second time to make sure. Anyway, it worked. The uncle called back this morning because he remembered somebody he’d left out, a family by the name of Streeter. Couple’s name is Daniel and Maggie, and they live smack dab in the geographic middle of where Leo pegged the killer might live. Daniel Streeter is also a cop, a trooper who works for the State Police.”

  “Holy shit. Find out what kind of personal vehicle he drives.”

  Harry held up a hand. “A word of advice. Tread carefully here, Skye. You start barging in and interviewing cops, you’re gonna tip the scales in their favor. Trust me on this. A wall will go up. That wall of silence is real, one that you’ll never be able to crack in a million years, let alone throughout one summer vacation.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  “If your gut tells you it’s a cop, stick with that theory until it hits a wall.”

  “What about the interviews I wanted to do?”

  “Interview everybody but these four cops. Send me out. I’ll revisit the rest of Lily’s client list, including the judge. That leaves you and Josh to zero in on your main suspects without them catching on. Keep at it—fly under the radar, just don’t let them know they’re your targets. Nibble around the edges until something pops, gather the goods, and I mean a lot of goods. Then go after him. Get your ducks in a row because you’ll need twice the evidence to bring down a cop, any cop, anywhere. You’re an outsider here. Even with Quade Grayhawk’s help, it won’t matter if you’re going up against the sheriff’s department or the state police.”

  “Great. Just great.”

  “Is Josh still not speaking to you?”

  “Yeah. The way he’s acting, you’d think I’d cheated on him or something instead of taking off after a suspect.”

  “And how would you feel if the situation were reversed. What if he’d been the one to take off after the suspect, leaving you wondering what was going on in the middle of the night?”

  “I’d have understood that it was a spur of the moment thing, that he needed to act right then and there before he lost the guy.” Her shoulders slumped. Even she didn’t buy it. She sat down and stared up at Harry. The former detective stood there, glaring at her. “Okay. Okay. I see your point. Maybe I wouldn’t be quite that understanding either. Who am I kidding? I’d be furious. It was a dumb thing to do without alerting anybody to what was going down.”

  “There you go. Admitting it is half the battle.”

  Skye went in search of Josh and found him with Sierra and Cody on the deck while Emmadine played fetch with Atka and Bella in the common green area nearby. Knowing they couldn’t fight in front of Sierra, Skye sat down next to him on the steps. In a low voice, she leaned in and said, “How long are you gonna be mad at me?”

  Josh cut his eyes to hers. “Until you realize what a dumb thing you did?”

  “What was I supposed to do just let him stroll off into the night?”

  “You lost him anyway.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “All right. How about if I remind you that Reggie’s point made a lot of sense? You could’ve been hit over the head and dragged to his pickup truck. Or what about what Harry said. You have any number of people who gave up their summer to help you out. Do you rely on them? No, you don’t or won’t.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  Josh angled toward her. “You of all people should know that it only takes one impulsive act for this guy to get the upper hand. One mistake, one bad decision for everything to go wrong for you, right for him. How many of the girls thought they knew the guy? How many thought they could trust him? We don’t have the luxury of making mistakes.”

  “When you put it like that, I see your point. I apologize. It won’t happen again. But just so I’m clear, what should I have done, yelled and woke up the entire house?”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  “With a sleeping kid in the house? Get real.”

  “That’s just it, Skye. Sierra would’ve been fine, waking up without you there. Why? Because I was there for her. If you’d yelled out, at least I would’ve known what was going on. Put yourself in my shoes. Sierra came running in. I looked over at an empty side of the bed. Scared the crap out of me that you weren’t there.”

  She laid a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I’ll wear a whistle around my neck and blow read hard if I see a strange man lurking around the house. Are we good?”

  “Smartass.” He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the mouth. “Yeah. We’re good. We’re always good.”

  “We’re about to be even better.” She told him about the four cops and Harry’s ide
a about how to proceed. “It’s not the way we usually do things. But then nothing about this case has turned out the way we thought.”

  Josh’s face brightened. “Whatever it takes to get a handle on the situation, right? There’s a reason Merrick kept that information to himself yesterday. Either out of embarrassment or he didn’t want us making the connection from Loreen Kicking Bear to the missing girls.”

  “Which equates to an ulterior motive, something more sinister than an oversight on his part, something more deliberate. He knew he was misleading us and didn’t care.”

  “Or set the record straight. I don’t like the guy already.”

  “Me either. How do you surveil cops without them knowing it?”

  “Put trackers on their vehicles, both personal and patrol cars.”

  “Something tells me we shouldn’t mention this to Grayhawk.”

  “I wonder why? He wouldn’t approve of it, I’m sure.”

  “To say the least. Should we split up installing the trackers or do it one by one together?”

  “I vote to stay together. One needs to act as a lookout while the other gets the tracker attached to the underbelly.”

  Zoe cleared her throat. “Harry said I should get over here right away and tell you what I found out. Glad to see you two are talking again.”

  “Oh, we’ve been talking since it happened, but it was more like raised voices,” Skye cracked. “Now we’re back in civil-mode. Right, Josh?”

  “Right. What’s up?”

  “I found something in the police report about Victim Number Seven…”

  “At this point, it’s probably better for everyone if you use their names,” Skye pointed out. “I mean…”

  “Okay. Sure. Whatever. It’s about Kamena McToyler. I found something could be nothing. But it’s in her file under the witness statements. The Saturday Kamena went missing, she’d gone to a convenience store, right? This was in Dog Creek, so it was down in Nez Perce County, a different jurisdiction altogether. Which is confusing, by the way. Anyway, the deputies who handled her disappearance wrote down what I think is a key piece of information, a little nugget buried in their own police report. There’s an eyewitness who saw Kamena that afternoon, the afternoon of November 5th, carrying her soda and her bag of snacks outside the store. It even states in the guy’s statement that she was eating pretzels and drinking from an Orange Crush can. The eyewitness, a man by the name of Weston Powers, says she was minding her own business, poking along the sidewalk when she walked right past a police car that was parked across the street from where he was standing. Mr. Powers looked away for a few minutes, and when he glanced back up again, Kamena was gone. And so was the police car. He never saw her again after that.”

  Josh traded looks with Skye before glancing up at Zoe. “You’re certain he mentions a police car?”

  “Yeah. I brought the report.” After handing off the piece of paper, she pointed to the highlighted area. “There’s the witness’s statement certified by the deputy. According to the notes, Mr. Powers also appeared on camera and gave an interview to the media about what he saw. It seems to me someone buried that in the file.”

  “Great job. That’s the first documented account that points to a cop we’ve had since getting here.”

  “What type of patrol car was it, though?” Skye wondered aloud. “Jaynes, Merrick, and Osborne work for the County. Streeter’s car would have had the state police emblem on the side. Which is the most likely, County patrol car or state police? Because it would help if we could focus on one of these guys at a time until we’ve eliminated that person before moving on to the other one.”

  “The report doesn’t mention that,” Zoe pointed out. “But when questioned about it, Mr. Powers didn’t back down. He stood by the description that it definitely was a cop car.”

  “We should go talk to him,” Skye suggested. “Get it from the source’s mouth. Eyewitnesses are wrong about the facts all the time.”

  “Let’s do that right after we get the trackers in place. It’s something we can’t put off.”

  “I wish I could go with you,” Zoe stated, looking around in the direction of Emmadine. “But I should probably stay here and keep an eye on things.”

  Josh picked up on Zoe’s demeanor. “What things? What are you holding back? If there’s a problem with Emmadine, we should know about it.”

  “It’s probably nothing. But…she has this habit of leaving Sierra unattended while she talks on the phone. A lot.”

  A shocked Skye cut her eyes over to where Emmadine played with the dogs. “That’s not good, not good at all. Is it a boyfriend? Girlfriend? How long are these calls?”

  “Long. And I’m not sure who it is that keeps calling. But I already mentioned it to Leo because with everything going on, I didn’t want to bother you guys.”

  “Bother us,” Josh demanded, getting to his feet. “This is about Sierra’s wellbeing. There is no such thing as a bother. What did Leo say?”

  “That he’d talk to her. Look, Emmadine is awesome in every other way. I like her. I do. A lot. I’m not trying to get her into trouble or anything.”

  “But…” Skye prompted.

  “Well, she’s great with Sierra until her phone rings, and she picks it up. Then she goes into another room and starts talking, usually for too long. Sometimes she argues with whoever’s on the other end, and it gets loud. Yesterday afternoon the call lasted almost an hour and not once during that time did Emmadine come out to check on Sierra. Maybe she thought since I was there, it was okay that I’d take care of whatever popped up.”

  “But that’s not your job. Looking after Sierra is hers. What happens when you’re not there to make sure things are okay, and this call comes in, Emmadine gets distracted? Toddlers get into things they shouldn’t in the blink of an eye. They dart out the door. They follow the dogs outside unsupervised. I could list twenty things that could go wrong in a heartbeat. I don’t even like thinking about it. Look, keep an eye on Emmadine for us, will you? And from now on, you’re in charge of Sierra until we tell you otherwise. Don’t leave her alone with Emmadine until I’ve had a chance to talk to the woman and see what’s going on.”

  “We’ve had a chance to talk to her,” Josh corrected. “I want to know why she’s so distracted with this caller when she’s on the clock.”

  Zoe fidgeted with the necklace she wore around her neck. “So Emmadine’s position is a paid one? You’re paying her, right?”

  Skye’s face scrunched up. “Of course, we’re paying her. What do you think we’d do, drag her all this way to Idaho for a cabin in the woods? We’re paying her the going rate for a nanny in Seattle.”

  “Ah. I didn’t know that. Emmadine sort of alluded to…you know…that she wasn’t getting paid that much. She told the caller the salary wasn’t that great.”

  Josh ran a hand through his hair. “We had no idea about any of this. We appreciate the heads up, Zoe. Keep us informed about anything else you see or hear. And you stick to Sierra like glue. Understand? Forget going back through the police reports. I’ll text Reggie and let him know we need you here. I want you watching out for Sierra, full-time beginning now.”

  “Will do. Now that I know you’re this concerned, I’ll stay on top of it.”

  “We’ll try to make this quick,” Skye promised. ‘But we have this thing to do like maybe find eight GPS trackers sitting on the shelf somewhere in Coeur d’Alene.”

  A puzzled look crossed Zoe’s face. “Why don’t you just ask Harry? He has all that technical equipment Winston insisted Leo pack just in case. There are boxes of listening devices and several microphones just sitting in the closet inside their cabin. Leo unloaded it all the night we got here.”

  Seventeen

  Winston had thought of everything. He’d insisted they bring along state of the art devices with longer range, broader coverage, and extra-long battery life. The problem was they’d only brought six, not eight.

  Skye was behind the whe
el cruising toward their first stop. “Harry provided the locations where we can find Streeter’s personal vehicles, as well as his patrol car. Same with Jaynes and Osborne. For Trace Merrick, since he’s been sacked, we’ll have to settle for his personal vehicles.”

  “Merrick drives a pickup,” Josh said, shifting in his seat. “Do you see these girls climbing into a step-side pickup like that?”

  “Not really. But if they’d been dragged to it, the make and model wouldn’t matter. What does Merrick drive again?”

  “A 2007 Silverado. No, it’s not a Tacoma like the guy drove last night. But since we only have six trackers, maybe we should pick and choose to leave the wife’s car out of the equation. Only in this case, I just don’t see these teenage girls climbing up and getting inside a pickup truck.”

  “Again, he wouldn’t have to use his personal vehicle. If it’s a cop, my guess is he’s cruising around picking them up with a squad car. Are you saying you want to leave out Merrick’s pickup? That’s fine by me, but he’s our number two suspect right behind Daniel Streeter.”

  “We have to leave out someone.”

  “Make it the wives’ cars then. Although I’d really like to know what Susan Jaynes is up to.”

  “Why?”

  “She seemed the most boring one of all. And the most nervous.”

  “With an emphasis on seemed. That woman gave off a vibe that said something was eating at her and had been for a long time. Without even talking to her hubby, that’s what moved Jaynes into the number three slot.”

  “That, and the fact he’s a cop and he lives in the geographical area, and he owns a sizable piece of real estate.”

  “With outbuildings that include a barn. How do we do this? Harry suggested we wait until each officer stops to eat lunch. But we’d have to follow them individually while they’re at work to know where they routinely eat. This isn’t an afternoon’s work, is it? This is gonna take two, maybe three days to get the trackers in place.”

  “Yeah, but it’ll be worth it. In addition to the trackers, we should probably keep an eye on our top suspects. Harry and Leo volunteered to take a shift at watching Streeter for us. So did Reggie and Judy. We just have to set up a firm schedule, so we know which team is where at all times.”