Priscilla’s voice was sharp. “Who’s this?”
“Priscilla, it’s Detective Macy Greeley. You got a second?”
“If this is about your bomb victim it’s going to have to wait. We’re still sorting body parts. Excuse me.” Priscilla covered the mouthpiece and shouted instructions before getting back on the line. “Listen, Macy, I’ve got two medical school interns puking their guts out. You’re going to have to call me back later.”
Macy was left listening to a dial tone.
Macy put in a call to Lana Clark but she didn’t pick up. Macy looked up the number for The Whitefish and was relieved when the manager answered the phone immediately.
“Jean, this is Detective Macy Greeley. We spoke a few days back. I was wondering if Lana Clark was working today.”
“She was supposed to, but she called in sick. Have you tried her at home?”
“There’s no answer. Nothing on her cell phone either. Did you actually speak to her, or did she leave a message?”
“Yes, we spoke. It was about an hour ago. It’s pretty dead here these days so I was none too bothered.”
“How did she sound?”
“She seemed a bit out of it, which is unlike her, but I wouldn’t say she was on death’s door. I just figured everything that happened here is finally catching up with her. She tried to put on a brave face, but she was very fond of John.”
“If you hear from her, can you tell her to give me a call immediately?”
“Will do. You guys making any progress? I don’t think my customers feel too safe anymore. It’s been bad for business.”
“We’re doing the best we can.”
“Why doesn’t that fill me with confidence?”
“Have a good day. I’ll be in touch.”
There was a knock and the same officer she’d spoken to earlier stood at the door. Macy invited him in.
“It’s Dean, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am. Just wanted to keep you posted. I got another call from Aiden. He thinks you should head up to the lake now. They’re making faster progress than predicted. Should have the vehicle out of the water within the next half hour.”
“That’s great. Thanks for letting me know.” She offered him a chair but he remained standing. “Have you been in touch with Lana Clark recently?”
“I saw her a couple nights ago. Why?”
“I’m just concerned. I’ve been trying to get in touch with her and she’s not picking up her cell or her home phone.”
“She always has her phone with her.”
“You know where she lives?”
“Sure. I’ve been out there a few times.”
“I want you to go check on her.”
“Do you think she’s in trouble?”
“It’s probably nothing.”
“I’ll head up there now.”
Macy stopped him before he left the office. “Call me the second you know something.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m on it.”
“Dean,” she said, gathering her things. “Take someone with you.”
* * *
Macy took the back roads up to Darby Lake. Overhead the sky was a silky gray, and the hay fields flattened out like inland oceans. Solitary houses wavered in the heat. Macy stopped at a four-way intersection and waited for the cross traffic to clear of the cars coming from the direction of Darby Lake. Except for the press, the picnic area was closed until further notice. Macy recognized the officer standing at the roadblock from when she’d worked in Collier. She shook his hand through the open window.
“Hi, Gareth.”
“Hey, Macy, how you been?”
She gazed out the windshield. The road ahead buckled like wet floorboards. “I’ve been better. This heat is getting to me.”
“Tell me about it. Another ten minutes of this and I’m going to pass out.”
Macy reached over to the passenger seat and fished around in her icebox. “Diet Coke or 7 Up?”
“Either would be great.”
She handed him a can. “If it’s any consolation, I think they’re almost finished at the lake.”
He pulled back his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. “Makes a difference to being up here in winter.”
“I can’t even imagine it now. All that snow seems like a distant dream.”
He held up his drink. “Thanks for this.”
“My pleasure. See you soon.”
The police had cordoned off the parking lot near the boat ramp. There were a few reporters loitering in the shaded picnic area, but they seemed reluctant to venture across the baking tarmac. Macy pulled up as close as she could to the temporary awning the forensics crew had erected. Ethan’s pickup truck glided across the water, riding on the back of a flat-bottomed boat that looked like a small ferry. The boat ramp wasn’t steep but the water level had dropped so much that the trailer was out on the rocky beach, its two back wheels submerged in the water as it waited for the truck to arrive. The tow truck driver sat behind the wheel with his engine idling. She could see the crane they’d used to pull the vehicle from the water. It looked like a children’s toy sitting at the base of the tall cliffs ringing the escarpment.
Macy found Ryan resting in the shade near the toilet blocks. He looked hungover and she called him on it. He slipped down his sunglasses so he could glare at her.
“I’ve been stuck in Wilmington Creek all week. Of course I’m hungover.”
“Have you spoken to Priscilla today?”
“I heard one of her interns vomited on the evidence.”
“You heard wrong. It was two interns.”
“You need a pretty strong stomach to deal with what we scraped off the floor of that garage.”
“Better you than me. Has she found anything unusual?”
He shrugged. “Considering what we do for a living, that’s a pretty open-ended question.”
“She’s not returning my calls.”
“You know the drill. Queen Priscilla will not be rushed.”
“How soon do you think we can have the DNA results?”
“That could be another week. Are you having doubts about the identity of the victim?”
“I looked at the preliminary report on the garage. There were two deep freezers.”
“One was empty. The other had some ice and a few bags of frozen peas.”
“How easy would it be to determine if the remains we found in the garage were previously frozen?”
“There would be ice crystal artifacts in the tissue. A quick check under the microscope is all that’s required.”
“I need you to call Priscilla and tell her to do it immediately.”
“If it wasn’t Tyler Locke, who do you think we found in the garage?”
“I’d rather not say until we hear back from her.”
Macy headed for the boat ramp, where they were already loading the pickup truck onto a trailer. It took a few tries to get it lined up properly. She stepped away to make room for the tow truck. The front grille of Ethan’s pickup was crushed and all the tires were flat, but otherwise it was intact. The paintwork was rusting in places and a brown sludge covered the windows. She could see where the divers had wiped it away to see inside. Rust-colored water dripped from the base of the doors and undercarriage onto the tarp they’d spread across the parking lot beneath the temporary awning.
Aiden came over and stood next to her. “I heard you sent Dean up to Lana Clark’s place. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s just something Jeremy dropped into the conversation this morning. It might be nothing but it got me thinking. A female employee up at the Dalton Ranch accused Tyler of stalking her. It got so bad she quit.”
“Why is Jeremy only telling us this now?”
“He didn’t realize it was relevant.”
“Did you speak to the woman?”
“Karen Walcott still remembers it like it was yesterday. Tyler followed her, drove by her house at night wit
h his headlights off, called her up but never said a word. Sound familiar?”
“Wasn’t Tyler in Afghanistan when Lana was being harassed?”
“There’s a chance we were sent falsified service records from a hacked Fort Benning e-mail account. They’re sending over his records again so we can be sure we have a valid copy.”
“I don’t wish to point out the obvious, but you’re the one who said Tyler was in his garage before it blew up.”
“Once I saw the truck was wired up to explode, I got out of there in a hurry. In hindsight, I assumed it was Tyler. I didn’t actually get close enough to be sure.”
Ryan brushed past Macy, wearing his protective gear. “Priscilla nearly bit my head off, but she’s running the tests you asked for.”
“Thanks, Ryan. I owe you a drink.”
Aiden removed his sunglasses and cleaned them with a tissue. “So who do you think was in the garage?”
“Charlie Lott is my best guess.”
Macy stood with the sun on her back and waited for Ryan’s team to open the doors to Ethan Green’s pickup truck. The driver’s side door popped open and Macy stepped away as a crime scene photographer moved in to take pictures. He conferred with Ryan for a couple of minutes before going around to the passenger side. Ryan used a pair of scissors to cut through the wet air bag that was tangled around the upper body. As it peeled away, there was a sucking sound and Ethan’s head snapped backwards so that it was hanging out the door. Dark eyes protruded from a pale face and water streamed through long black hair that glistened like an oil slick caught in sunlight. Ryan called Macy and Aiden over for a closer look. Macy watched an air bubble form between Ethan’s parted lips. She almost lost her breakfast when it popped. She’d already seen enough.
Aiden was the first to speak. “That’s Ethan Green all right.”
Ryan adjusted the body’s position so he could examine the wound on the forehead. “He’s got a contusion here.” He pointed with a gloved finger. “You can see here that it was starting to bruise. It doesn’t look like a strong enough blow to kill him.”
Macy’s words were as heavy as boots. She had difficulty lifting them. “Are there any other wounds?”
Ryan tilted the head slightly and teased away a clump of matted hair to reveal the right temple. “There’s some more bruising here and the skin is broken.”
Ryan peeled back more of the wet remnants of the air bag, inadvertently pulling away Ethan’s shirt as well. There was a wound to his chest.
“Here we go,” he said. “That’s an exit wound. Let’s turn him over.”
One of Ryan’s colleagues came over to help. They carefully rotated Ethan’s body. He leaned in, blocking the view.
“It has to be confirmed but I’d say there’s a good chance that Ethan Green died as a result of exsanguination. There are two gunshot wounds. One slug went right through, but with any luck the other will help us identify the weapon used.” He glanced over at Macy. “I assume you’re hoping it’s a 9mm.”
Aiden took hold of Macy’s arm to steady her.
“Are you okay?”
She waved him away but he kept holding on.
“I just need some air.” She looked up at Ryan. “Keep this quiet for now. It changes everything.”
They walked over to the picnic area and Macy sat in the shade sipping water from a bottle while Aiden paced back and forth in front of her.
Macy glanced over at the truck. “Ethan regained consciousness and was shot with his own gun. Tyler could have taken it home with him. It would explain the tie-in with the highway patrolman’s murder. It looks like Ray was right about that after all.”
Aiden thought about this for a few seconds. “That makes Tyler the prime suspect in John’s murder. We need to confirm that Charlie Lott’s body was in Tyler’s garage.”
She kept her eyes on the ground. It was difficult to find a pine needle amongst the cigarette butts. Someone had been wearing bright pink lipstick.
Her cell phone buzzed and she picked it up. “It’s the medical examiner.”
Priscilla sounded like she was on a speakerphone. “Macy, I ran the tests you wanted. There are ice crystal artifacts in the tissue I examined.”
“You’re confident the remains were previously frozen?”
“Yes, I’m one hundred percent sure that’s the case. There isn’t the damage you’d associate with multiple freezing and thawing cycles over a long period. Further tests may give you a better time frame, but I’d say you’re looking at a month, maybe more.”
“We need to get DNA analysis done right away. I’ll call the authorities in Spokane so you have something for comparison.”
“Do you have someone specific in mind?”
“Charlie Lott has been missing for nearly a month. I think his body has been stored in one of the freezers in Tyler Locke’s garage all this time.”
Aiden tried radioing the officer Macy had sent to Lana Clark’s home, but there was no answer. He had the same result when he tried his cell phone.
Macy fell in next to Aiden as they headed for his vehicle. “I told Dean not to go alone. Please tell me he listened.”
“It seems he didn’t.” Aiden slammed the door shut and started the car up. “A team is meeting us up there.”
“How far to Lana’s place?”
“Twenty minutes if we hurry. When’s the last time you tried her cell phone?”
“I’ll do it again now.” Macy left another message on Lana’s cell and dialed the home number before giving up. “No one is answering. Can we send a police helicopter?”
“I’ve got one in the air, but there’s no place to touch down. The terrain is too rough.” He gripped the steering wheel and floored it once they cleared the gravel parking lot. “I didn’t see this coming.”
Macy squinted at her phone. It was difficult to read the screen with the vehicle rattling across the uneven road. The file was in her inbox as promised. “I’ve just received another copy of Tyler’s service records.”
“And?”
“Just a second.” She tried to keep the phone steady. “This is impossible to read with the car bouncing around.”
“Can’t you just call them?”
“Wait. Here we go. It says here that on January twenty-eighth, Tyler was evacuated from Afghanistan for mental health reasons.”
“He’s been in Georgia all this time.”
“He’s not even active duty. He was discharged nearly a month ago.” Macy kept reading. “They’re investigating the source of the e-mail but it appears that Tyler created a bogus account using the name of someone who works in their human resources department and sent us a falsified service record.”
“It was a pretty risky move on Tyler’s part. Someone in my office should have noticed.”
“Tyler had to cover his tracks. If we’d known he was in Georgia all this time, he’d have been viewed in an entirely different light. You’d think someone around here would have known he was back in the States.”
“John must have. They were in the same platoon.”
“Tyler probably asked him to keep it quiet.”
Aiden tapped the steering wheel. “I’m no expert on these things, but Tyler seems a little too organized to be suffering from PTSD.”
“I hear you. I’m guessing he panicked when he found out John and Lana were dating. Other than getting wounded, the only way he could get back to Fort Benning in a hurry was to pretend to have a mental breakdown.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
Macy was beginning to feel ill. She spoke slowly and kept her eyes on the road. “He returns to Georgia and finds he can’t engage with Lana in a socially acceptable way, so his obsession escalates to the point that he starts stalking her. Maybe he figured if he scared her enough she’d come running to him for help.”
“But she came here instead.”
“She thought she was safe, but it turns out she moved to her stalker’s hometown. I wish Jeremy had told us about Karen Wa
lcott sooner.”
“If he didn’t take it seriously when it happened, he’s not going to give it much thought years later.”
Aiden joined Route 93 and increased his speed. “And then there’s Lindsay. I’m not sure what Tyler’s motive to kill her would have been, but he certainly had opportunity. He was her closest neighbor.”
Macy tried Lana’s number again. “Still no answer. How much farther?”
“Ten minutes.” He passed several eighteen-wheelers that had pulled over to the side. “We have to take a secondary road the rest of the way. It’s going to get hairy.”
He took a sharp right and his back wheels skidded to the left. The SUV rocked back and forth a couple times. Macy groped around the glove box and pulled out an empty evidence bag.
Aiden glanced over at her. “Shit. Sorry. Are you going to be sick?”
Macy held the bag under her chin. “It’s okay. I just can’t talk right now.”
“I’ll open the window.”
Macy stuck her head out the window and her ponytail whipped around and hit her in the face. They were climbing out of the valley now. Through the trees she could see sunlight reflecting off water. There was a stream down there somewhere. She turned away and tried to focus on the road twisting out in front of them. They passed a handful of mailboxes on the way up. The houses were lost in the pine trees. There wasn’t a single car.
“She lives in the middle of nowhere. You’d think she’d want to be close to people after what happened to her back in Georgia.”
“I doubt she has much choice. It’s probably all she can afford.”
They slowed down before turning left onto a narrow road.
“Almost there.” Aiden pointed beyond the passenger-side window. “You can just see it through the trees.”
“I’ll keep my eyes on the road if that’s okay with you.”
Aiden drove another fifty yards before parking his vehicle in a turnout. He picked up the radio and requested an ambulance and made sure there were roadblocks in place north and south of the junction on Route 93.
He checked his gun and looked over at Macy. “You feeling better now?”
She lied and said she was fine.
He reached around to the backseat and pulled out two bulletproof vests. “I imagine this is going to be a little large on you.”
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