Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (23 page)

Jaime shrugged. “Everyone remembers what happened after Jenny disappeared, but nobody remembers seeing her around camp. They all assumed she was on the outing with the other kids. Either they didn't see her, or it's some kind of collective amnesia. No one remembers seeing any strangers on the property either.”

He sighed. “There are a few differences in both their statements from 1997, but nothing that raises any red flags. Just little glitches in memory. Maybe that'll change as we go up the food chain, but I doubt it. Hope you've got something better.”

Laura's cell rang.

It was Detective Waddell.

Jaime hoped she had something better. Turned out, she did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Steve Lawson sat on the sofa, turning the collar around in his hands. Jake lay at his feet. Steve's first inclination was to call the sheriff's department and tell them about his find. But what did he really have? He had a collar that he'd found hanging in an old shed. That was it. If you took away the ghost and the crying, that was all you had.

Not to mention the fact that the collar had been in the shed would cast guilt in one direction: on his grandfather.

It was impossible to think of his grandfather as a child molester, let alone a child killer. Impossible. But maybe he
should
think about it.

Steve had read countless stories in newspapers and magazines about people who had turned out to be child molesters, and it seemed in all of them somebody said, “I never would have suspected him.” But in accepting the possibility that his grandfather was a child molester, Steve needed more evidence than the fact that he lived alone near where Jenny's bones had been buried.

The only other empirical evidence he had was his own experience and that of his sisters.

Steve had never once felt uncomfortable in his grandfather's presence. Never once been touched in any way other than what was normal for grandfathers and grandsons. Never once had an inkling of anything deeper than the typical love of a man for his grandson.

Maybe, though, his experience was unique. Maybe his grandfather's taste ran to his two sisters.

If it had, he had been unaware of it.

He glanced at the clock; it was the same time in California as it was here. Two o'clock in the afternoon. His sister could be doing anything. Her time was both unstructured and chaotic; she had two small children.

She answered on the first ring, sounding harried. “Yes?”

“Dani? It's me, Steve.”

“Steve! Are you in town?”

“No.”

“I've got to be at Mrs. Mitchell's in fifteen minutes. Can I call you back?”

“Yes. But it's important.”

“Fifteen minutes. Make that twenty-five. I don't like talking on the cell phone when the kids are in the car. Twenty-five minutes.”

She hung up. Steve thought Mrs. Mitchell must be the kids' swimming instructor. Either that or their karate coach.

Next he called Karen.

Karen's kids were older, and Karen herself was not as chaotically inclined as Dani.

“I have something to ask you,” he told her. “Just keep an open mind, and please be honest.”

“Uh … okay.” Her voice wary.

Steve glanced at Jake. Jake's eyebrows wrinkled as he looked up. “I know this sounds funny, but—“

“Spit it out, Steve, all right?”

Good old Karen. No-nonsense and down-to-earth.

“All those times we were with grandpa,” Steve said. “Did he—were you ever uncomfortable around him?”

Silence on the other end.

“Karen? I need to know.”

“You're wondering if he
molested
us?
Me?
No way.”

Steve opened his mouth to apologize, but she cut him off.

“No
damn
way.”

“I had to ask—“

“Why?”

He told her about Jenny Carmichael's bones being found on the property. He didn't mention Jenny's ghost, though. He didn't mention hearing Jenny talking to the phantom puppy. He didn't mention the collar hanging in the shed.

There was another pause, and then she said, “That's really weak, Steve. Just because somebody buried her near your cabin, doesn't mean grandpa had anything to do with it. I mean, the man was in his
eighties
.”

“I know.”

“You knew him. What do you think? You really think he would molest a little girl? Don't you know him any better than that?”

“I do know him better than that.”

“Then why'd you call?”

“I'm just compiling the evidence to make sure the police don't suspect him.”

He didn't mention that they were probably more interested in him.

“You think they're going to call me?”

“They could.”

“Well then, I'll tell them the same thing I told you. Only I didn't think I'd have to say it to you.”

________

After talking to Danielle—it went a little better because Danielle was so harried, she hardly heard a word he said—Steve decided that he'd been right all along: There was no way his grandfather would have molested an eight-year-old girl and then killed her.

Where was his faith, though? Why had he even considered it? What kind of person did that make him?

And what would he do now? Jenny's ghost was obviously trying to tell him something. Clearly, she had been down here, not at Rose Canyon Lake with the other campers. All along, the searchers had been looking in the wrong area.

Which meant that someone, somehow, had overlooked the fact that she was not at the picnic.

Was that important in the scheme of things? Obviously, the investigators knew that Jenny had been killed near the camp and would be centering their investigation not around Rose Canyon Lake, but here. And he guessed they were already checking out his story with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Which was fine with him, because he was sure he had not even come to Tucson that summer. And he was damn sure he had not molested and then killed a little girl.

As he had grown older, Steve had become more cynical, but he was not yet at the point where he believed an innocent man could be convicted of a crime he did not commit.

Make that
this
innocent man. He was well aware of the many innocent men and women who languished away in prison for years—some of them even put to death—for crimes they did not commit. The governor of one state, he couldn't remember if it was Indiana or Illinois, had placed a moratorium on executions for just that reason. People were actually being
proven
innocent all over the country, thanks to the DNA Project. So, yes,
theoretically
, it was true that he, Steve Lawson, could be railroaded for Jenny Carmichael's murder.

But in his heart, he didn't believe it.

Maybe that was a mistake. He knew that he was a suspect. He thought, though, that he was a
mild
suspect, that he was only being considered a “person of interest” because of his proximity to the burial site and because they didn't have anyone else.

Steve thought about the two detectives: the sheriff's detective and the investigator with the Department of Public Safety office.

They seemed sensible. He liked them both. He knew that the one—Molina—was more suspicious of him than the other one.

He liked them both, but he liked Laura Cardinal better.

He thought she was not only sensible, but capable. She had a no-frills way of doing things that he admired. She went about her job in a professional manner. He had felt, too, that she really cared about the little girl buried near the stream bed. That it was important to her to find who killed Jenny, not just because it was her job, but because it was the right thing.

He had sensed a passion underneath her business-like exterior. He knew about passion, because he had it for his own work.

He thought of Laura Cardinal's cool eyes. The strength he perceived behind him. Pictured what she'd think of him if he told her he saw ghosts.

It would never happen.

Detectives Cardinal and Molina were big girls and boys. They knew where to look for answers: Here, near the stream bed, not down at the lake. What did it matter if Jenny Carmichael had a puppy? What did it matter that on one of his grandfather's walks, he had found an old red collar?

Steve was sure now that this was what had happened. His grandfather had gone for a walk and found the collar, picked it up, and hung it in the shed. He'd grown up during the Depression. He had never thrown anything away. Everything had perceived value, even a ratty old collar. So he’d kept it.

A crunch of tires on rock outside—he looked out the window and saw Julie's SUV pull in off the road.

The rain had gone, Steve realized, and had been replaced by puddles that shone under a mostly blue sky. Julie's door opened and light glanced off the window and into his eyes.

Just what he needed, his ex-wife.

And yet when he saw her getting out with two bags of groceries, kicking the door shut, he felt an odd twinge of hope.

He realized suddenly how lonely he had been.

Realized as well that time had again seemed to slip by. When had the storm clouds gone and the sun taken over? When had the shadows grown longer? He glanced at the clock above the kitchen sink. Almost five p.m. The slanting light causing the maple cupboards to glow bright gold.

With a whuffle, Jake got up and went to the front door. Woofed once.

Steve met her on the porch and took one of the bags.

“Don't drop it. There's wine in there.”

He looked at her.

“It's for me,” she said.

“What's the occasion?”

“I was just sorry I missed you the other day. And I saw you on the news.”

The three-second sound bite. He'd almost forgotten that. The news crew up here on the mountain at four in the morning, the 750-watt lights still on, the generator going. Crime scene tape strung behind him.

How did you feel when you made the grisly discovery
?

How do you
think
I felt?

A loud clunk as Julie put one of the bags on the table. “Remember the pasta dish we used to make,
spaghetti con vongole
?”

“How could I forget?”

“That's right, you can't.” She pinched his cheek in a parody of her mother. “
Abbondanza
”

________

When should he tell her that he didn't want them to be lovers anymore? Chopping garlic and shallots for the sauce didn't seem to be the right time. Or at dinner. After dinner, he thought.
And before bed
.

It needed to be before they started kissing or that would seal their fate for another night.

“These are the only glasses you have?” she asked, pulling down jelly glasses.

“’Fraid so. Grandpa left all his nice stuff at the house in Laguna.”

She poured two glasses, set one down next to his plate. Saw his look, and said, “Come on, you drink occasionally. I think finding a bunch of bones in your backyard is worthy of getting a little bit tipsy.”

He didn't protest. It might be good to have a glass of wine.

Liquid courage.

The spaghetti was good and reminded him of times early in their relationship when they used to cook together. Julie was curious about the whole string of events over the last couple of days, and he was happy to unburden himself. The wine hit him like a Mack truck, and he realized he was more than tipsy, despite having only two glasses of wine. To clear his head, he suggested she go with him when he let Jake out.

By then the sky was deep indigo and the stars were out, so close he could touch them between the black cut-outs of the pines. The air smelling freshly-washed, bracingly clean. He wanted to stay outside, because he knew when they got back to the cabin things could degenerate quickly.