Cold Lake (8 page)

Wolf turned up the windshield wipers to a steady beat and flipped on his headlights as the SUV rolled down the muddy dirt road.

Just like the foggy view outside, he was going into this interview almost blind. Instead of watching Kimber Grey’s reactions to his father’s questions on video, Wolf was going to be talking to a woman he’d never met relaying her side of things, and over two decades later. That would have been fine for him, had he known the interview video was waiting for him when he got back.

Wolf shook his head. There was no sense worrying about it. He looked out the droplet-covered windows at the surrounding forest. The fog had everything socked in, cutting visibility to fifty yards or less. The weather obscured his view of the lake to his left, not that he suspected it would be visible with the density of the pines.

Crawling down a steep grade at ten miles per hour, Wolf feathered the brakes as a couple of craters in the road came into view. Flanked by car-sized rocks on either side, the bottleneck forced him to almost stop and enter the dip straight on. The rear bumper scraped as he dropped in, and then he lifted in his seat and the rock and dirt beneath the tires smoothed out.

Just before he let off the brake and coasted, he jammed to a stop, sure he’d seen something on a tree next to the rock on the left. Hoping his parking brake would hold on the steep grade, he stepped out. The rocky wet earth gave way underneath his work boots as he stepped back toward the massive potholes.

Sure enough, he’d seen something on the tree—a camouflage-painted rectangular game camera with a shiny black lens in the center, more or less pointed straight at him. A four-inch long antenna jutted out from the side of the device—a newer model camera capable of transmitting the picture via Wi-Fi connection.

After a few seconds of staring into the lens, large raindrops slapped on his coat, coaxing him back into the idling SUV.

Down the hill, a side-road went perpendicular left. He stopped and studied it. The fog had lifted just enough to see that the road veered up and left in the distance. He pushed the button on his phone screen to check the map. There was no service. He checked the Wi-Fi settings and found one network available called “XXXXX”. It was a secure connection requiring a password.

He continued straight, using his memory of the map that he’d studied before leaving the County Hospital parking lot.

Two gentle turns and a brief straightaway later he came to his destination.

Someone was out front of the cabin wielding an axe, chopping down on a vertical piece of firewood with a fierce blow that sent two pieces flying onto the ground.

The person turned, and as his wipers swished he saw a pretty face buried inside a blue parka hood. Kimber Grey, Wolf recognized, though much older than her photos he’d seen so far in the file sitting next to him.

Not to say she looked old. She looked young, and her jeans were snug, showing she was fit, and the way she chopped another piece of pine showed she was strong.

She was seventeen when Nick Pollard went missing and within days her father, her father’s truck, and her mother, were gone too. That was twenty-two years ago. Wolf had done the math: she was thirty-nine, just a year or so younger than Wolf, and had lived at this location her entire life since that fateful summer, and yet he could not remember ever seeing this woman in person other than this moment.

“Kimber Grey?” Wolf closed his door and zipped up his parka.

“Yep.” She kept her back to him, raising the axe behind her and swinging down with perfect precision. The wood clanked to each side and she bent over and picked up another piece and placed it on her stump. The air was thick with the scent of fresh cut lumber.

Wolf looked past her to the cabin. It was a two-story wood frame construction with the entrance on the upper level. The lower floor was halfway sunk into the ground. Wooden steps climbed up to the entrance, which was a shiny wood slab door, and to the right of it was a covered deck that wrapped around to the right and presumably to the back of the property. A large bay window revealed open curtains and a spinning ceiling fan inside, but little else.

“I’m Sheriff David Wolf, of the Sluice County Sheriff’s Department. I’d like to talk to you for a bit.”

“Okay.” She chopped another piece.

Wolf heard a faint motor to his left and turned, noticing the abrupt edge of the land fifty yards away for the first time. The lake that Wolf knew was there below the precipice was invisible in the eye-level clouds they stood in.

“Can you please stop with the axe?”

She jammed the axe into the stump, pulled down her hood and turned around. “Sorry, I’m low on firewood. Need to get some stocked back up. Still gets plenty cold up here in the summer, you know?”

She flashed a gleaming smile, and Wolf saw the similar mole above her lip as her mother’s, though Kimber’s was more pronounced. She pulled off her leather glove and pointed to it, then pointed at Wolf’s face.

“We both have these damn things,” she said.

Wolf smiled and shook her hand, which was hot and sweaty, slender, fitting easily inside his, and when she took it back it was like pulling sandpaper from his grip. She was callused like an old farmer, or a rock climber.

“Kimber Grey,” she said.

“Nice to meet you. I’d like to talk to you about the,”—he gestured to the lake—“recent activity on the lake. I take it you’ve heard?”

Leaning back, she made a face and twisted back and forth to loosen her muscles. “Yeah. I’ve heard. I’ve been watching it.”

“Do you think we could go inside for a chat?” Wolf asked.

She nodded. “Follow me. You drink coffee?”

Wolf sat at a small eating table and watched Kimber work in the kitchen.

Kimber made coffee with elegant movements: lifting a back leg as she bent into a cupboard and pulled out a French press, jumping just the right height to grab a bag of coffee grounds stored on top of the cupboards. There was no wasted action. She knew every centimeter of the kitchen, and she was well practiced with what she was doing. Apparently she liked her caffeine.

By the time she was depressing the plunger the weather was clearing outside, and the clouds slid out to the east, revealing more and more of the majestic view of the silver lake below. He wondered how much the property had cost when they had moved here all those years ago.

“How many acres you have here, if you don’t mind me asking?”

She poured the coffee and set it down in front of Wolf. “Sixty three. It’s mostly that way, up towards Olin Heeter’s place.” She faced the lake and then pointed left.

Wolf remembered his father’s notes, and Olin Heeter’s mention of seeing something being dropped in the lake on the night of July 6th.

He sipped the strong coffee and then stood up and bent over the counter to get a better look out onto the land below the house. It was the side of the house and beneath it was the parallel edge of the cliff line below. Some scrub oaks and pines obscured the edge to the right, and over to the left the cliff was more exposed—grassy land and then precipice. On the far left part of the exposed section was a wood staircase with a hearty handrail that disappeared over the edge. “Man, that’s quite a ways down. I hope that’s a sturdy staircase.”

“Oh yeah. It’s sturdy.” She leaned over next to him and pointed towards the scrub oak. “If you don’t want to go down the stairs, you can always rappel down my rope.”

Wolf squinted and saw a turquoise and pink climbing rope, attached to a sophisticated top-rope anchor system that hooked to two tree trunks, dangling over the edge and out of sight. He whistled softly and walked back to the table. Sitting down, he noticed her smile, looking satisfied she had impressed him.

“You climb up that?” Wolf asked.

“Yep.”

“And who’s belaying you from below?”

“I self-belay.”

Wolf nodded.

“You rock climb?” Kimber’s amber brown eyes locked on his as she took a slow, careful sip of her coffee. Then she set her cup on the counter and leaned back on her hands with arched back, presenting her smallish breasts and erect nipples through the thin fabric of her long-sleeved shirt. Her arms rippled with thin muscle.

“No. Not unless I have to.”

She stayed in the provocative pose and spoke softly. “So you found Nick Pollard.” It wasn’t a question.

“What makes you say that?”

“So you did?”

“We did. Why did you suspect that?” Wolf asked.

“I thought it would have been obvious to you. You watched the interview tapes of me and my mom that your father made, right?”

“Actually I haven’t watched your interview yet. I wanted to get it straight from you first.”

She reached for her coffee cup and twisted to look out the windows. With slow deliberation she caressed her jeans, and then slid her fingers inside her rear pocket. “Okay. So what do you want to know?”

“Everything. I’d like to start with that week of the Fourth of July. Tell me about you and Nick, and about that night.”

She turned and walked over, then sat down across the table. With an exhale she closed her eyes and her brown eyelashes swung to the top of her cheeks like Chinese fans. Her chestnut hair was pulled back in a ponytail that couldn’t tame the wavy thickness of it. Frizzy strands popped up everywhere and she tucked one long one behind her ear.

Wolf smelled her for the first time; a flowery scented deodorant and sweat.

“It’s been so long.”

“Take your time.”

She looked at Wolf and gave him a sad smile without teeth, as if he was being the kindest person in the world to her.

Wolf admitted to himself at that moment that she was an attractive woman. Had he been a single man, he’d have admitted she was beyond attractive.

“Let’s see. I started seeing Nick two weeks before that.”

“How did you two meet?”

She smiled. “I went to a party some guy was having out in the woods one Saturday night. I remember I heard some other kids talking about it over at the marina, and I just showed up. By myself.”

Wolf nodded.

“Anyways. I didn’t get out much with my parents being how they were. I kind of wasn’t supposed to be there, and I didn’t know anyone. I was seventeen, and just wanted to see what the whole fuss was all about. The whole high school scene. The whole being social scene. So I walked up to the keg, and I remember everyone was staring at me like I was a bear or something coming out of the woods, and he came up and started talking to me. Wouldn’t leave me alone, actually. After a while I guess I started to like him. He was, after all, a boy talking to me.”

She shrugged and took a sip of her coffee.

Wolf saw her mother’s spitting image in her actions.

“So you two dated a few times leading up to the Fourth?”

She nodded. “Yeah. We went out twice. Went and saw a movie down in Ashland once. And I went to his house for dinner once.”

Wolf took a sip of coffee, thinking about how Nick Pollard’s mother said she had badgered Nick into bringing Kimber over to their little house by the river. But Nick had yet to bring her there.

So that was a lie. But was it Kimber Grey’s or Wendy Pollard’s?

“The place the Pollards have on the hill?” Wolf asked.

Kimber looked at him and broke into a slow smile. “No. The one by the river. Mrs. Pollard has another place? Didn’t think they had that much money.”

Wolf sipped his coffee. “And how about the Fourth of July? Were you two planning to meet that night?”

Kimber shook her head. “No. I’m not sure why Nick’s mother has been saying that. Maybe Nick was lying to her, I don’t know. But we never had any plans for meeting that night.”

“Tell me about that night,” Wolf said.

“My mom and dad and I went in the boat to the marina to watch the fireworks. When we were there, my dad got a call and he left in a hurry. Then he came back later and picked us up.” She took a sip of her coffee and seemed to steel her thoughts. “I remember he was so sullen on the trip back. And then when we got in the house, he went crazy.”

“Meaning?” Wolf asked.

“He was screaming and throwing things. Calling me a whore. Yelling at me about how I was disgracing the family.” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head.

“And then what did he do?”

“He locked me in the room. That was it. I went to sleep.” She shrugged again.

“The next day my father came to visit you asking about Nick Pollard’s disappearance.”

She looked at him and nodded. “Yeah. He was a nice guy, your dad. He was real concerned for us.”

“But that day, the day after the Fourth of July, you guys told him that your dad had been with you guys the whole time at the marina. The entire fireworks show.”

She frowned and shook her head. “I didn’t tell your father anything. I didn’t speak that day when your father came over. I talked to your father the
next
day, after my dad left. When we went into the station and did the interviews.”