The Shadow Box(87)

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Where did Sallie keep her garden things?” he asked, sidestepping the question.

“In a bin on the terrace,” she said.

Conor was about to ask her to take him to the bin when something occurred to him. “When did you first find out Dan was going to plant that tree?”

“Sallie told me a few days before she died. It bugged her because he had the ground all ready for planting, tilled and dug. She said it had been that way for a month, they were past the prime time to get the tree and bushes into the ground, and she was afraid the kids would fall into the hole.”

“The hole?” he asked. “Where is it?”

“Right beside the garage, out back,” she said.

“I didn’t notice it when we came in.”

“Come to think of it, neither did I,” Lydia said.

Conor hurried out the door, around the side of the building. He saw it right away: a rectangular plot of freshly disturbed earth, the exact shape as the one he’d seen at the hunting preserve.

“This is weird,” she said. “It was a big old hole just yesterday. Why did he fill it in instead of planting the rhododendrons?”

“Let’s go back to the house,” Conor said. After she went inside, he found Jen with a bunch of forensic techs in Tyvek overalls. “Get your shovels,” he said to them and led them back to the recently filled-in grave-shaped hole. He felt sick, wondering if they were about to uncover Claire’s body, dusty with white quicklime.

“You okay?” Jen asked.

He shook his head. “I want to find her but not like this . . .”

“I know, Conor,” she said. Then, “What fucking balls it would take to bury her right behind his house.”

The police erected portable tents to prevent onlookers and media drones from seeing what they were doing. When the techs began to dig, Conor pulled Jen aside and showed her one of the photos of Ravenscrag.

“This is the place Gwen drew,” he said.

“Where she thinks the mermen took Charlie,” Jen said.

“Let’s start calling departments along the shoreline, ask who knows where this house is. It’s not exactly discreet—it’s got to be a landmark to people who live near it,” Conor said. His stomach flipped; he was standing here with Jen Miano, talking in a calm voice while listening to shovels scooping and throwing dirt. The sound was rhythmic and solemn.

He and Jen stood still and silent. His thoughts were for Claire. It took another few minutes before the sound of digging stopped.

“Detectives,” one of the techs said, beckoning them over.

Conor’s heart skipped as he approached the hole and steeled himself to look into the face of Claire Beaudry Chase.

“Holy shit,” Jen said.

And Conor agreed but didn’t speak as he stared down at the body of Dan Benson, a bullet hole in his head.





47





CLAIRE


Spencer drove us back to Hubbard’s Point and dropped us off at Jackie’s house. Telling us about Marnie had taken everything she had, and she wanted to spend the rest of the day alone.

When we got to Jackie’s, Tom was out. I actually wished he were there; I was ready to come out of the shadows, and I wanted to tell both Tom and Conor what had happened, what I knew. Jackie handed me a clean towel, and I went upstairs to take a shower. I stripped off my old clothes—so rancid Jackie just threw them away—and stood under the stream of hot water for the longest time, loving the feeling of being clean, not wanting the shower to end. When I got out, I put on a pair of Jackie’s khaki shorts and a blue Vineyard Vines T-shirt and went into her kitchen.

Jackie had made us tuna fish sandwiches, and we ate them with potato chips and iced tea, just as we had when we were kids, and no meal had ever tasted so good. While we ate, Jackie filled me in on the news—articles about me that had been in the newspapers and stories that had appeared on channels 3 and 8.

“I don’t know how you stayed hidden so long,” she said. “Your face is everywhere. There was a story about you in People.”

“Oh, great. All these years of making art, and now I’m known for being missing.”

Jackie laughed. “Well, it’s working. The gallery has been getting calls from all over, lots of people stopping by.”

I thought about the gallery, how I had been attacked the day my show opened. How nervous and excited I had felt—not just because of the anticipation of my exhibition opening, the trepidation of hearing the opinions of critics and collectors about my latest work—but because of Griffin. Because I had just shown him my shadow box—the shadow box, the one that mattered.

“What happened the night of the opening?” I asked.

“It was successful,” Jackie said. “It nearly sold out.”

“Remember the piece I delivered late that afternoon?” I asked.

“Of course. Fingerbone.”

“Did you know what it was about?” I asked.

“I knew it had to do with Ellen,” she said. “With you finding her body in the tide pool.”

“I don’t have proof,” I said. “But I know Griffin killed her.”

She sat silently, looking into my eyes. “He bought it, you know. Fingerbone.”