by Dawn Eastman
Carlson sighed heavily and picked up his pen. “Okay, tell me what you know.”
“That’s really it. She said he got home last night, they had dinner together, and then he went up to his room. She hasn’t seen him since.”
“I dropped him off in the afternoon,” Carlson said. “I saw him go inside. Where was he all afternoon and why did my officer not report it?”
Katie waited. She didn’t think he was really looking for an answer from her.
“Doc, I’m going to tell you something in confidence.” Carlson leaned forward.
Katie sat up straighter in the chair. “What is it?”
“Alicia Nielsen and her daughter are missing as well.”
“What?” Katie sat back to distance herself from this new piece of information.
“Nathan was just in here yelling at me for not protecting his wife. I told him he should check with all of her friends and relatives to be sure she isn’t visiting someone. I didn’t know Eugene was missing, too.”
“You don’t think Eugene could hurt Alicia, do you?”
Carlson held his hands out, palms up, echoing Katie’s gesture. “I have no idea. I hardly know the kid. I only know that he spent time in prison for manslaughter. A month after he gets out, another girl is dead not even a quarter mile from his house, and now a third young woman goes missing. It doesn’t look good.”
41
Carlson set the phone down gently, carefully, in its cradle. What he wanted to do was slam it down over and over again until the damn thing shattered.
How could two adults and a baby just disappear? Alicia was memorable. With her light-blonde hair and open, lovely face, she got noticed. For that matter, Eugene was memorable. Big ears and even bigger glasses.
When Katie had told him that Eugene’s truck was gone, he had hoped they would be able to find it easily. And they had. Parked along a side street near Alicia’s house. Unfortunately, if Eugene and Alicia were together, they had taken Alicia’s car, a nondescript tan Ford sedan. There were only thousands of those in the area.
Regardless, there had not been one sighting of them together or apart. No stops at restaurants or drive-throughs or gas stations. He’d had his whole department calling every place they could think of all morning. He’d really thought it would be easy to track them.
It was the last thing he needed right now in the middle of a murder inquiry. He couldn’t spare the manpower any longer on a fruitless search for people who had every right to go off together, regardless of what Nathan Nielsen thought.
Carlson got up slowly from his desk chair, feeling old. He walked down the hall to the staff room to organize his team for the rest of the day.
He entered the team room where they all had their desks. Sean Gallagher spun his chair around to face Carlson. He was a good cop. He’d have been excellent if he’d been able to keep a secret from his wife.
Molly Hart continued to type on her computer, but Carlson knew she had one eye on him to be sure he divvied up the duties fairly. She was a great cop, but her moods could rub Carlson the wrong way.
Rounding out the team was Henry Crabbe. A brand-new officer who barely knew how to write a speeding ticket, Crabbe was eager to prove himself. Carlson worried that that was how mistakes got made. At least he’d have some help from the Ann Arbor police.
“Any new information on Taylor Knox or Eugene and Alicia?” he asked.
Sean shook his head.
Molly stopped typing. “The preliminary results are back on the autopsy.” She pulled a sheaf of papers off the printer and handed them to Carlson. “She’d been dead for at least a week, according to the pathologist. He says she was killed and the body was stored somewhere inside. There was minimal insect activity.”
Carlson noticed Henry’s face go white. He looked like he might pass out.
“Sit down, Crabbe,” Carlson said. “Put your head down. If you have to puke, make sure you make it to the bathroom. Thanks, Molly; I saw the report earlier. So, we’re looking for a place where the body might have been stored this past week.”
Crabbe sat down and breathed heavily into his lap. Carlson just caught the amused expression that passed between Molly and Sean.
“You’re all right, Henry,” Carlson said, quietly. “It’s hard to hear all the details sometimes.”
He watched his officer for another few seconds, then, reassured that he was not going to pass out, looked at his other two officers.
“We’ll need to interview the people she was last in contact with again. Find out who might have access to a place to hide a body for a week. You can’t just hide a body anywhere, and this one was protected from the elements until just before it was found. I assume there’s still no sign of the car?”
Sean, who had been given the unwelcome job of tracking down Taylor’s car, shook his head. “No one has reported an abandoned car. I checked parking garages in Ann Arbor just in case she met her murderer there. I thought maybe she’d just been dumped in Baxter to throw us off.” Sean flipped a page in his notebook. “I’ve checked parking lots here in Baxter and I drove around to all the places kids tend to like to park, and still no sign.”
“I like the idea of the murderer coming from Ann Arbor, Gallagher. Good thinking.”
Sean smiled and flipped his notebook closed in a self-satisfied way.
“Chief, wouldn’t there be a … smell if the body was stored somewhere?” Molly asked.
“Good point, Molly,” Carlson said.
She nodded and ducked her head to hide her smile.
“I’ll need you and Sean to call storage facilities here and in Ann Arbor and see if anyone connected to Taylor has a rental. Some of those places have minimal supervision. I suppose a decomposing body could be hidden in a place like that without being discovered right away.”
“Yes, sir,” Molly said.
Sean nodded and spun his chair back to his desk to get to work.
“Henry, you come with me,” Carlson said. “No one has seen Alicia or Eugene, which means they’re probably holed up somewhere. No idea if they are together or apart.”
“Do you think he kidnapped them?” Henry asked.
“I’m not sure what to think,” Carlson said. “It sounds like Alicia may have left willingly, and we have no way of knowing whether she’s with Eugene or if she’s just gone off to stay with a friend. I need you to look into it. Call around local hotels and motels with their description. And try to think of any place in the area that two adults and a baby could go to hide.”
“I’m on it, Chief,” Henry said.
42
Katie had been going over her notes until her head hurt and her eyes blurred. She had come to no conclusions. She had no idea if Eugene was innocent. Had Alicia left with him willingly, or was he really the strange, obsessed stalker so many people in town thought he was?
But why would he take the baby too? Katie didn’t know and wondered if she ever would. She had been working from the mind-set of doing the best she could in the moment and trying very hard not to second-guess herself. In medicine, doctors were often put in the position of making a snap decision. They ran the possibilities through their decision tree and tried to choose the option that would be most helpful and least harmful.
Sometimes they didn’t succeed. Every single doctor Katie had ever known carried a burden of guilt for those few wrong decisions. The faces of the healthy, successfully treated patients didn’t follow them around saying, “Way to go!” It was only the failures that came out in those moments of silence. The ones who didn’t get better, the ones who had to live with health problems, the ones who died.
Katie had decided long ago that she would choose which ones followed her. She had been only moderately successful. Some of the bad outcomes refused to be left behind, but for each one of those, Katie chose a good outcome to counterbalance it.
She just wasn’t sure how she would balance the lives of Alicia and Olivia if she had misjudged Eugene.
Her
phone rang, and she snatched it up like a lifeline.
“Hello?”
“Dr. LeClair, this is Delores Munch.”
Katie felt her brows draw together. They had reacted even before she was able to think uh-oh.
“Yes, Mrs. Munch?”
“I’m promoting you to team leader of the parade team,” Mrs. Munch said. “I’ll expect you at the meeting in thirty minutes. We meet in the gym as usual.”
“Team leader?” Katie said. “I don’t know anything about the parade.”
“I am aware of that, and if I could find anyone else to take over, I would, but you are my last resort,” Delores said. “Everything is already planned; you just have to supervise.”
Katie glanced at the table filled with charts and timetables and notes. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to get out of her house.
“Okay, I’ll see you in half an hour,” Katie said.
“Twenty-nine minutes,” said Mrs. Munch. The line went dead.
Twenty-five minutes later, Katie entered the gym. It was much quieter than usual, with only a few people sitting in folding chairs in a corner of the room.
“Well, now that the parade team leader is here, we can get started,” said Mrs. Munch. She looked down her nose at Katie.
Katie felt like she had done something wrong, but had no idea what.
“Where is Nathan?” the man in charge of food asked. Katie recognized him as the man who had been talking to Nathan in the drama room. She thought Nathan had called him Mike.
“You’ll recall he was absent on Monday during our most important meeting of the season. I had to ask him to step down. We can’t have semicommitted team leaders,” Mrs. Munch said. “Besides, he needs to be focused on his family issues at the moment. He did promise to be at the parade to drive the float.”
A swell of whispers traveled around the group. Katie wondered where Nathan had been. He’d seemed pretty committed to the parade. He even stored the equipment during the year. It sounded like everyone else was wondering where he had been and how he would react to a newcomer taking over his role. Katie looked down at her lap.
Mrs. Munch pulled her bullhorn out of her purse and set it on the ground near her chair. The whispering stopped.
“Let’s hear our troubleshooting reports,” she said. “We’ll start with decorations.”
Katie’s eyes glazed over as the team leaders recited their concerns and troubles. She wondered if the royal wedding had been quite so involved. Delores Munch graciously—it seemed—excused Katie from giving a report since she had just taken on the role.
“Since Nathan is gone, you’ll have to do one last check on the costumes before tomorrow.”
Delores clapped her hands, and that seemed to be the signal that the meeting was over. Katie ruminated on her inability to say no and its repercussions on her life as the rest of the people milled around and compared notes.
Katie slipped out of the noisy gym and walked down the hallway to the drama department. She might as well check on the costumes now, while she was already here. Her footsteps echoed as she moved further away from the gym. The lights were dim, and she cast foggy shadows on the lockers and walls.
The door to the drama department was closed. Katie tried the handle, and it clicked open easily. Inside, it was dark and the shrouded stage sets and racks of costumes hulked in the shadows. She felt along the wall for the light switch. When she couldn’t find it, she pulled out her phone and turned on its flashlight. She shone the light along the wall on both sides of the door and finally found the panel of controls.
The third switch flicked the lights on. She wondered what else she had triggered while flipping switches. She saw the rack of costumes for the parade in the middle of the room. The pumpkin costume sat jauntily at its side. Katie glared at it and would have given it a kick if she’d thought she could do so without damaging it.
There was a box tucked under the rack. Katie pulled it out and saw the label: NEW COSTUMES. Great, now she’d have to track Nathan down and find out whom he had assigned to wear them. She flipped the lid back to see what kinds of costumes they were and let out a shriek.
There, curled on top of a pirate costume, was a large snake. It seemed just as surprised to see her as she was to see it. It hissed lazily at her and began to uncurl.
She saw the note taped to the inside of the lid. Addressed to Dr Laclare. Whoever had sent the package clearly didn’t know Katie. Not only did they not know how to spell her name, but they didn’t know she had an affinity for snakes. Her best friend from grades three to five had owned a snake and had carried it around draped over her shoulders. This guy was a boa constrictor and must have been a pet. He gently flicked his tongue out to her hand as she lifted him out of the box.
She was about to open the envelope when Mrs. Munch burst into the room, red faced and out of breath. Several other people from the meeting stood behind her.
“Dr. LeClair!” Mrs. Munch said. “We thought we heard you scream. Where did you get that snake?”
Katie gestured toward the box, but Delores wasn’t finished.
“We do not allow live animals in the parade. I’ll get you a copy of our regulations.”
One of the men pushed forward. He was tall and thin with dark receding hair, heavy rimmed glasses, and the rounded shoulders of someone who wished he were shorter.
He held his hand out for the snake. “I think that’s Lester,” he said. “He belongs in the science lab. I hope he didn’t scare you.”
Katie shook her head. “He seemed friendly enough.”
Excitement over, the crowd dispersed, led by Delores. After the door swung closed again, Katie opened the envelope.
Mind your own business was scrawled in thick black marker and underlined in red.
43
Friday morning, Katie’s phone rang as she was clearing up her breakfast dishes. She was relieved to see Gabrielle’s name pop up on the screen. Katie had texted and left voice messages since Wednesday evening after Gabrielle had texted she was fine, and she’d not heard back from her.
“Gabrielle, hi,” Katie said.
There was silence on the line. Then Katie heard Gabrielle sniffle.
“What’s the matter? Are you okay?”
“I have the alibi you were looking for. Russell says he had a date on the night that Heather Stone was killed and they were together all evening.”
That wasn’t what he had told the police, but Katie didn’t want to argue with Gabrielle.
“Oh, good,” Katie said. “Thank you.”
“He also has an alibi for Monday night,” Gabrielle said. “He was with one of his grad students. All night. After he canceled plans with me.” Gabrielle’s voice cracked.
“Gabrielle, I’m so sorry,” Katie said. She wished she were with her in person. Gabrielle dated a lot of guys, and she almost never got upset when they moved on. Usually it was Gabrielle doing the breaking up.
“No, it’s fine. I’m glad I found out now. It’s better this way.”
Katie wondered if that was true. No matter when you found out, betrayal was betrayal. And she felt responsible on some level. She had pushed Gabrielle to question Russell. But would it have been better for Gabrielle to get even more attached? Katie didn’t know. Maybe Gabrielle would have gotten bored and none of this heartache would have happened.
While she was sorry that Gabrielle was so miserable, she didn’t think she would believe Russell’s alibi until he produced this mysterious grad student. And she had passed a lie detector test. Russell had chosen a good story. Just shocking enough to sound true, hoping that Gabrielle and Katie would not try to follow up on it.
“I know what will cheer you up,” Katie said.
Gabrielle sniffled. “What’s that?”
“Watching me try to stay on the Halloween float while dressed as a pumpkin.”
“Oh my God. Yes. That will go a long way toward making the world right again.”
“Parade starts at six o’clo
ck.”
“I’ll be there.”
44
Halloween had ushered in cooler weather, and there was even a threat of snow. Katie was not looking forward to her parade duties, but she was afraid of Delores and knew she’d have to go.
Katie and Matt drove together to the high school to don their costumes and receive their final instructions. The now familiar walk to the gym was louder as all of the different teams spilled into the hallways to spread out and move their equipment to Main Street. They dodged coolers, hot dog carts, pumpkins, ghosts, skeletons, and streamers to get to their section of the gym.
Katie’s pumpkin costume sat on the float, ready for action. It looked perfectly fine just as it was; why did someone need to be inside? True, the tiny green hands hung limply at its sides, but how much could Katie really wave with only her wrist and hand sticking out of the pumpkin? She was just glad that she didn’t have to wear a green hat and smile for the whole thing. The suit was big enough to cover everything but her feet and hands. She had worn her comfortable fleece boots and now slipped green covers over them.
“Are you ready for this?” Matt asked.
“I suppose,” Katie said. Matt had already changed into his pirate costume, and the young pirates had spotted him. They ran at him, yelling, “Pirate King! Pirate King!”
Miss Simms and Mrs. Peabody followed them across the gym. Miss Simms had a whistle, which she used to no effect. Mrs. Peabody had an air horn that stopped the marauding pirates in midchant.
“All pirates come with us—we have to line up,” said Miss Simms. She adjusted her eye patch. She held a Jolly Roger flag aloft and the pirates fell in line.
Mrs. Peabody took a position at the back to corral the stragglers. “We’ll see you outside in two minutes,” she said to Matt, then turned to Katie. “By the way, I wouldn’t get into the pumpkin quite yet. We still have a half hour before the parade starts,” she grinned. “Keep your freedom as long as you can.”
Delores Munch approached at that moment. Her helmet of hair had glitter in it, her lipstick was smeared, and she had orange and black streamers wrapped around her neck. “This is a disaster!” she exclaimed.