And There He Kept Her (Ben Packard #1)(43)

“That piece of wood is a chock. It was moved out of the way before the car fell. Even if the car managed to tip and roll with the chock in place, it would be under the car, not to the side like that.”

“Who would want to kill Sam Gherlick?” Shepard asked.

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you to collect evidence so we can figure it out.”

Packard took out his cell phone and found the email from Kelly with the phone records. He repeated the Whatup? phone number in his head until he could remember it long enough to dial it. He told Shepard about the Whatup? message someone had texted Jesse the night before he and Jenny disappeared.

“Besides Jenny, this was the last number to be in contact with Jesse before they disappeared,” Packard said. He put his phone on speaker so Shepard could hear it ringing. A second later a muffled ringtone sounded beneath the Mustang. Packard let it ring three times.

“That’s the phone,” he said, pocketing his. “Sam Gherlick knew where Jenny and Jesse were going the night they disappeared. Now he’s not around to tell us.”

“You’re suggesting that someone who knew what Sam knew did this,” Shepard said.

“I don’t believe in coincidences. Seems as likely as the idea that a kid who’s probably been under this car a hundred times would accidentally pull it down on himself just now.”

Shepard fished a pack of cigarettes from his uniform shirt pocket and shook one out. “Sounds like you’re inventing boogeymen, if you ask me. I know he’s the sheriff’s grandson and all, but he was probably high or thinking about pussy, and forgot to chock his tires before crawling underneath. Now he’s got a Mustang parked on his face. I’ll get the fingerprint kit if that’s what you want, but if you ask me—”

“I didn’t ask you anything, Shepard. Put the cigarette away and get the camera and the crime scene kit. We’re not taking a smoke break. We’re working.”

Shepard shrugged and headed down the driveway, tucking the cigarette back in the same shirt pocket.

“Watch where you’re walking, Deputy. You just stepped in piss,” Packard said. Shepard looked down at the wet streak striping the driveway, shook his foot, and sidestepped the rest.

When Thielen came back from the house, she handed Packard a driver’s license. “I can’t rouse her. She’s definitely on something. Her breathing is shallow but not thready. I took the ID from the purse next to the bed.”

Shannon Gherlick. Twenty-two years old. Same blond hair. Same peek of a tattoo high on her neck in the ID’s photo.

“This is his sister,” Packard said. “Have EMS load her up. They can come back for Sam. It’s gonna be a while before we finish documenting the scene.”

He told her what he’d told Shepard about the text messages and the ringing phone in Sam’s pocket. He told her more than he’d told Shepard—about calling Sam’s number from Jesse’s phone before he even knew Sam was involved and the one-sided conversation they’d had. Thielen stared at the ground, nodding. She had short blond hair that she could rake into place with her fingers. No makeup. Dressed business casual with a sheriff’s department windbreaker. She had a husband almost twenty years her senior. No kids. She was a great cop who was always on the lookout for people who wanted to use her gender or her size to take her down on the job. She put up with no bullshit.

“I feel like I was minutes too late this morning. I might have passed whoever did this on the way out here.”

He looked at the ambulance guys dressed in black and white who were standing next to their rig waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Shepard was checking the batteries in the digital camera and scratching at a stain near the crotch of his pants.

“You’re in charge,” Packard said to Thielen. “Keep an eye on Shepard and make sure he doesn’t make a mess of things. Get in touch if you find anything interesting.” He nodded in the direction of the body under the car. “I have to go tell his folks.”





Chapter Fourteen


Emmett was wearing a brown pair of pants with a broken zipper and a belt that helped keep them up. On top he wore a yellowed tank that exposed his hairy arms and shoulders. He shook out a whole pill from the bottle by the kitchen sink, swallowed it, then put another pill and a half in his pocket.

The girl’s lunch, a fried chicken TV dinner, was cooling on the counter. She’d told him that morning she couldn’t keep eating breakfast sandwiches.

“I need more protein, more fiber,” she said. “My body needs less insulin when I eat real food.”

“Like what?”

“Whole meats, oatmeal, carrots and broccoli, sweet potatoes, Greek yogurt.”

He had none of those things. Everything he ate came in a box or a can. He had to think of what even came close. “There’s a fried chicken TV dinner.”

“What else is with it?”

“Mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, apple pie.”

“I could eat the chicken and the vegetables,” she said.

Emmett put the chicken on a plate, used his finger to scrape out some of the peas and carrots, and went down the basement stairs.

The girl looked and smelled better since her shower the day before. She’d said her pain was still a six or a seven when he’d asked that morning. He’d given her another half pill of oxycodone and some ibuprofen with her breakfast, and left her with the lamp and a stack of Penthouses. It was the only reading material he had in the basement.