Devil Smoke (15 page)

Tommy tried to sit, but couldn’t stay still, so he abandoned his bottle of beer on the arm of his Adirondack chair and paced along the edge of the deck.

“Maybe the two of you should come to the farm, stay with us,” Peter suggested. “At least for the week.” The farm was the twelve-acre spread halfway up a mountain out in Forward Township where Gloria and Peter had built their dream home and kept a few horses. Peter called himself retired but was too restless to ever fully stop working, taking on private clients when the project appealed.

Tommy didn’t answer; all he could think of was the night before Charlotte’s car was found, when Peter had stayed up all night building a website to use for the public appeals. Then the next day, after the car was found with no signs that she hadn’t left voluntarily, everything had changed. Peter and Gloria grew distant, and more than once he overheard them asking Nellie if everything was okay, if she was scared of anyone, did Daddy ever scare her? Then, when the extent of Charlotte’s deceptions came to light—hidden bank accounts, credit cards, a post office box, multiple cell phones—her parents began to question how well they knew their own daughter. Tommy asked himself those same questions. It was this shared confusion that actually cemented their bond, with Nellie at the heart.

What if tonight, Tommy thought, what if they hadn’t found Nellie? What if instead of sharing a beer and moment of peace, tonight he and Peter had to build another fruitless website? Tommy’s hand trembled. He shoved it into his pocket, found the dried leaf now beginning to shred, felt the solid mass of the charm wrapped inside it.

Hold it together. He just had to hold it together… for how long? When would this stop?

“I think Nellie needs to stay here,” he heard himself saying, not quite sure if they were the words he’d intended or not. But he had to fill the silence with something—what did it matter which words he chose? They were all empty noise, vanishing into the void as soon as he spoke them. He was so sick and tired of words. He wanted more. Something solid. Something real.

Before he could figure out what that something was, much less how to get it, Gloria called out, “Dinner’s ready.”

They went inside, Peter exchanging a glance with Gloria and shaking his head, an entire conversation in shorthand. Usually Tommy loved watching them together—he used to nudge Charlotte and whisper to her, “That’ll be us in twenty years”—but tonight he knew he was the topic of their silent conversation.

Get used to it, he thought. He was lucky the media wasn’t already camped out on his front stoop after what had happened today.

“Nellie,” Gloria called upstairs.

Clumping footsteps answered her, and Nellie appeared, tugging Sarah behind her—the stranger in their family drama. She looked a bit stunned and overwhelmed. Tommy regretted allowing her to join them.

“We were washing up,” Nellie said, letting go of Sarah’s hand long enough to raise her own for inspection. Only a few smears of magic marker and paint. She took her seat beside Tommy. The dishes were on the sideboard waiting for Gloria to dole out servings of pasta and sauce direct from the pots on the stove. Gloria’s maiden name was Burgoyne, and it was from her that Charlotte had gotten her auburn hair, but when she’d married into the Callabrese family, Gloria had quickly learned how to cook proper Italian food.

Sarah pulled back the vacant chair at the foot of the table, preparing to take a seat, when Nellie cried out, “No. That’s Mommy’s chair.”

Sarah flushed and glanced down at the place setting. They always set one for Charlotte, a habit that had turned into a hopeful ritual. Magical thinking, the trauma counselor called it. “Sorry. I didn’t—”

“It’s all right,” Tommy reassured her, using that fake-too-bright voice he despised. “Sit beside Nellie.”

“Is that all right with you, Nellie?” Sarah bent down to Nellie’s eye level as she asked.

“Yes, please sit here. And if you don’t like your meatballs, it’s okay, I’ll eat them for you.”

“How can I resist an offer like that?” Sarah said with a smile, the tension broken.

Gloria began to place steaming bowls of pasta before them, and everyone began to talk, complimenting the cook and talking about Nellie’s adventure. From his spot at the head of the table, Tommy closed his eyes, absorbing the feeling of family. It was an intoxicating illusion, but it was broken as soon as he opened them again and his gaze fell on Charlotte’s empty seat.

WITH TRAFFIC, IT
was almost an hour later by the time TK and Lucy reached the parking area at Fiddler’s Knob. There was one other vehicle in the lot, a dusty Ford pickup. TK was feeling a bit carsick from squinting at the photos Wash sent to her phone during the trip, but they’d found three possible areas to investigate.

Lucy parked her Subaru and popped the trunk. TK watched as she balanced on the rear bumper and changed into a pair of hiking boots. It was the first time she’d seen Lucy’s brace, a molded piece of plastic designed to keep her foot from drooping and dragging on the ground. It was also the first time she’d seen the extensive braid of scar tissue extending above the brace and Lucy’s sock—and she knew there was worse hidden below.

“You going to be okay on the trail?” she asked. “It looks pretty steep in places.”

Instead of answering, Lucy surprised her by hesitating. TK would have felt better if Lucy had snapped at her for questioning her fitness; uncertainty in Lucy was not something she was comfortable seeing. It made her seem too vulnerable, human.

After lacing the boots tight, Lucy reached into the trunk for one more item: a hiker’s walking stick with a wide rubber tip. “I’ll manage.”

TK smiled. Leave it to Lucy to find a workable compromise without admitting weakness.

Then Lucy handed her a small knapsack. “Flashlight, gloves, other gear that might come in handy.”

TK glanced up the mountain. She’d been raised in West Virginia, had gone fishing and hunting with her father when she was young, but that was to put food on the table, not because she liked the woods.

“Other gear? Like bear spray? Maybe that shotgun?” Both she and Lucy carried nine-millimeter Berettas, but TK doubted that would stop a rampaging bear. She’d much rather have the Remington pump-action Lucy kept stowed in her trunk.

“If I were you, I’d be more afraid of snakes,” Lucy said, slamming the trunk closed and leaving the shotgun behind. She moved toward the trail, using the walking stick to offset her limp. “Rattlers and copperheads are both common around here.”

Oh, great, TK thought as she followed, keeping one eye on the ground and the other on her phone, where Wash had overlaid Sarah’s photos onto a topo map. “We’ve got four areas Wash tagged,” she said.

“We only have maybe two hours of sunlight. Let’s start at the top and work our way down.”

“Then we’ll be staring at the first place he spotted—the one with the ballerina charm.”

They entered the forest, and the light was already cut by half. TK took the lead, surprised that Lucy didn’t lag too far behind despite the obvious pain her ankle caused. Not for the first time, she thought that Lucy would have made a decent Marine. It was the highest compliment TK could give anyone, and she didn’t give it lightly.

“If we do find something,” TK continued as they climbed the trail, “what then? I mean, I’ve read reports and seen the photos, but I’ve never been involved right from the start. With a body.”

“Lucky you. First, we’ll call the authorities—in this case the state police would have jurisdiction. They’ll send a trooper who will secure a perimeter and call their sergeant or corporal to dispatch an investigator and CSI team. If it is skeletal remains, they’ll call in a forensic anthropologist, probably from Pitt or Penn State, depending on who’s available, and together with their team they’ll work on searching the entire area and documenting it. Then they’ll excavate any remains they do find, and begin their analysis.”

“So how long before we actually know anything? All that doesn’t happen overnight.”

“I wish. But sometimes you get lucky—personal belongings to provide a preliminary ID, medical equipment with serial numbers like breast implants or orthopedic plates. Finding a jaw is always a help.”

“Because of dental records.”

“Not just them. Remember, you need to have a name to start with in order to pull records for a comparison. But molars are also a good source of DNA.”

TK slowed as they approached the coordinates where Sarah had taken the photo of the pink flower and the silver charm.

“Okay, we should be near.” She squinted in the fading light, searching for a reference point, but it was Lucy who spotted the log about eight yards off the trail.

“Wait there,” Lucy said as she carefully picked her way through the leaves and underbrush.

“I know how to not disturb a crime scene,” TK protested.

“It’s not that. Just wait.”

TK didn’t care for Lucy’s tone—the kind of tone that implied that something was off. “Why?”

“Because this log is a fallen tree trunk.”

Well, duh. “We’re in a forest.”

“It’s a pine tree.” Lucy crouched down a few feet away from the moss growing around and under the tree trunk. She held out her phone, recording everything. “You see any pines this size around me?”

TK looked up. “No. They’re all oaks and maples. Nearest pine tree I see is over here, on the other side of the trail.”

“Exactly. Know any deer or wild animals that drag a fallen log over to weigh down something they’ve buried?”

“Shit.” They hadn’t even seen the maybe-could-be bones yet, and Lucy had already figured out that they had a crime scene. “Should I call the staties?” She glanced at her phone. “Wait. I can’t—no reception.”

“The charm in the photo, it was right beside the orchid, right?”

“Yep. About four inches, I’d guess. Between the flower and the log.”

“It’s gone.”

“Do you see the bones Wash spotted? They were at the far edge of the photo, in the shadow of the log.” She was still amazed Wash had seen them at all. Guy had a hell of an eye for detail.

“Yes.” Lucy leaned forward, bracing herself with her walking stick to get as close as possible without disrupting or touching anything. TK saw the flash from her phone fill the shadows with bright light. “Can you carefully follow my tracks? I need more light.”

TK pulled the high-intensity flashlight from the pack and joined Lucy. The gathering shadows were quickly banished by the LED beam. She knelt in the damp leaves beside Lucy and angled the light under the log. There she could make out three not-quite-parallel rows of grayish-tan colored material stained by dirt and moss. They didn’t resemble the polished ivory of bones from an anatomical skeleton. Maybe they were just twigs? Or pebbles? Whatever they were, they’d been exposed to the elements for a while.

Lucy took TK’s hand and aimed the light at a slightly different angle, revealing a flash from something metallic. Two rings fallen into a gap between the gray bits. Okay, not twigs. Not pebbles or bits of debris. Bones.

“A woman,” TK breathed, craning her head, trying to see if there was anything more. Was that a piece of cloth or just a brightly colored leaf? Impossible to tell without moving the log, and they couldn’t disturb the crime scene.

“Let me try something before we go down to call the staties,” Lucy said. She stood and readjusted her angle, aiming her phone from the opposite side, zooming in on the rings. She took several photos with TK moving the light, then sat back on her haunches to examine them, zooming in even more with the photo editor.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” TK asked, looking over her shoulder as Lucy scrolled through the photos. One of the rings was becoming visible thanks to the bright light. “Are those hands?”

“It’s a claddagh.” Lucy breathed out, then blanked the phone as if she couldn’t bear to see any more. She used her walking stick to haul herself up, wincing as she put weight on her leg. “I spent the morning reviewing Charlotte Worth’s case. Her engagement ring was a claddagh design. Two hands holding a heart made of green agate.”

TK remained on the ground, still staring at the rings caught in the flashlight’s beam. The stone between the hands definitely looked green, but maybe that was from the moss? “No. It can’t be. I mean—what are the odds? Tommy and Sarah were just up here today. And Sarah—her amnesia, coming to us—it’s impossible, right?”

“Most cops don’t believe in coincidences,” Lucy replied in a grim tone. “Tommy is in for a rough time.”

TK pushed herself up to standing. “No way. Not Tommy.”

“Then who? Someone who targeted his wife, and then a year later, Sarah Brown? Someone who chased Sarah down this mountain, and when he didn’t catch her, somehow arranged for her to be sent to us for help? How exactly does that work?”

“I don’t know. But dammit, it did.”

Lucy stared at TK for a long moment, shadows clouding her expression, then finally nodded. “Okay. Then it did. Which means we have a lot of work and little time to do it. I’m going to wait here while you run down the mountain and call the staties. Ask their permission to call Burroughs in as well, since Charlotte is his case.”

“Maybe it’s not Charlotte. You said yourself, it’ll take days to confirm an identity.”

“Then I’ll owe Burroughs. But I want to get our part over with as soon as possible.”

“Should I call Tommy?”

“No,” Lucy snapped. Then she softened her tone. “No. I’ll go, tell him myself.”

“Right. We shouldn’t upset him, not until we’re certain.”

Lucy sighed. “I don’t think we have the luxury of waiting that long. But we can at least give him a few more hours. Now go, hurry.”

AFTER DINNER, GLORIA
took Nellie up for her bath while Peter cleaned up the kitchen. Tommy found himself in the living room, slumped in his usual place on the worn, overstuffed couch. The night was chilly and he debated starting a fire, but didn’t have the energy. Just as he had no energy to protest when Sarah sat down at the other corner of the couch, unknowingly taking Charlotte’s place.